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FORTY DAYS IN 1914 

MAJOR-GENERAL SIR F. MAURICE 



FORTY DAYS IN 
1914 



BY 



^ 



Major-General Sir F. Maurice 

K C.M.G., C.B. 



WITH FOUR MAPS 




NEW XBJr YORK 
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 



6^ 



3y& 



Copyright, 1919, 
By George H. Dorm Company 



Printed in the United States of America 






m 19 1^ 9 



PREFACE 

This little book owes its origin to curiosity. I 
wanted to see if it was possible to discover what the 
Germans were planning and doing during the retreat 
from Mons. I found that by piecing together evi- 
dence obtainable from the accounts of the early parts 
of the war published in Germany, in neutral coun- 
tries, in France, and by Belgian authorities, as well 
as from the reports of the very full investigations 
which have been conducted into the German 
atrocities, in Northern France and in Belgium, it was 
possible to work out the movements of the German 
armies, and from these to deduce the German 
plans. The information obtained in this way threw 
what has been to me an entirely new light upon the 
campaign, and made clear what had previously been 
dark. 

Much of what I have written about the Germans 
is necessarily conjectural, and therefore I make no 
claim to be writing history. But I believe that the 
positions I have ascribed to the German forces at 
various dates are in the main accurate, and I must 

v 



Preface 

leave my readers to judge of the deductions which I 
have drawn from those movements. 

I have found that the accounts published in Allied 
and neutral countries, owing to lack of information, 
do but scant justice to the part played by our origi- 
nal Expeditionary Force. Even such an authority 
as M. Hanotaux, in his excellent little book, 
L'Enigme de Charleroi, makes the fighting at Mons 
begin only at 3 o'clock in the afternoon on August 
23, and says that such fighting as did take place was 
done by our First Corps, which was hardly engaged 
at all. I hope that what I have written here may at 
least have the effect of making clearer the influence 
which our operations had on the campaign as a 
whole. 

For my account of the operations of the French 
Armies I am indebted chiefly to "Quatre Mois de 
Guerre," published in the official French BuUetm des 
armees for December 1914, to M. Hanotaux's His- 
toire illustree de la guerre, and to his UEnigme de 
Charleroi. My account of the operations of the 
Belgian Army is drawn from L' 'Action de Varmee 
beige, the official report of the Belgian General Staff, 
and from The Invasion and the War m Belgium, by 
Professor Leon van der Essen. To all of these I owe 
much valuable information as to the movements of 
the German armies. I have also to express my in- 

vi 



Preface 

debtedness to my brother-in-law, Captain C. T. At- 
kinson, who has kindly read the proofs and made 
many valuable suggestions. 

I have in my last chapter endeavoured to explain 
the strong and weak points in the German system 
of conducting war, and what we may learn from it 
to our advantage. 

I must apologise for the fact that it has been 
necessary to limit the number of maps, and therefore 
I have to ask my readers in following the operations 
occasionally to refer both to the general map and 
to the maps of the battlefields. 

F. MAURICE. 



Vll 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER I 

rtam 

The German Plan 1 

chapter ii 
The French Plan 19 

chapter iii 
The German March through Belgium . . 88 

chapter iv 
Namur, Dinant, and the Sambre .... 57 

chapter v 
Mons 72 

chapter vi 
Pursuit and Retreat 91 

chapter vii 
Von Kluck Changes Direction 120 

chapter viii 
The Ourcq and the Marne 155 

chapter ix 
The Higher Command in War 190 



IX 



MAPS 

I. General Map of the Western Theatre of War, 
showing the original concentration of the op- 
posing armies, and the marches of von Kluck's 
and of Sir John French's armies. 

II. Battles of the Sambre, Mons, and Le Cateau. 

III. The Battle of the Marne, September 5, 1914. 

IV. The Battle of the Marne, September 9, 1914. 



FORTY DAYS IN 1914 



FORTY DAYS IN 1914 



CHAPTER I 



THE GERMAN PLAN 



In the opening days of the war the opinion was gen- 
eral, both in Great Britain and in France, that 
Germany, having invaded Belgium and thereby com- 
pelled us, in defence of our honour, to take the field, 
had tilted against herself the balance of military 
power. The Dual Entente had never been considered 
to be conspicuously weaker in military power than 
the Triple Alliance, and when Italy refused to follow 
Germany and Austria into the field, and the clumsy 
diplomatists of Berlin had added the forces of Great 
Britain and Belgium to those of France and Russia, 
it was commonly held that Germany had overreached 
herself. When I landed at Havre on August 11, 
1914, a French colonel who had come down to meet 
our party said to me, "Now that the British Army 
is coming the result is certain. This time the Ger- 
mans have bitten off more than they can chew" ; and 
this represented the common opinion of both armies 
at the time. The news of the French invasion of 

1 



Forty Days in 1914 



Lorraine and of the stout resistance of Liege con- 
firmed this view, and until the actual tidings of dis- 
aster arrived all seemed going well. It was then with 
amazement that the peoples of the Entente nations 
learned that the fortress of Namur had fallen in 
forty-eight hours and that the German armies were 
sweeping through Belgium and Northern France, 
everywhere in overwhelming numbers. It was with 
consternation that Great Britain heard the news, for 
which she was completely unprepared, that her little 
army, all but surrounded, was as good as lost and 
that Paris lay at the mercy of the enemy. Then, 
still more amazing, came the later news that the 
Germans were in full retreat, that Paris was saved, 
and that our men were advancing victoriously, taking 
prisoners and guns. How did our army escape? 
Why did not the Germans enter Paris ? and why did 
they retreat? The answer has generally been — the 
miracle of the Marne. We owe much to Foch and 
the French soldiers of the Marne, but the Marne 
does not account for all, and to get as complete a 
reply to these questions as in the present state of our 
knowledge it is possible to give, to find out why the 
Germans failed of complete victory, and why they 
achieved as much as they did, we must look at events, 
as far as may be, from the German side, see how 
their plans were laid and how they were carried 
through. 

% 



The German Plan 



The basis of Germany's scheme of conquest, 
formed long before the war and put into execution 
in the autumn of 1914, was that she, holding a cen- 
tral position, would be opposed on the Western front 
by an enemy who could bring his forces quickly into 
the field and most quickly on the stretch of common 
frontier lying between Luxemburg and Switzerland, 
while on the Eastern front she would meet an enemy 
formidable in point of numbers, but slow and pon- 
derous in his methods, and lacking means to develop 
rapidly his numerical strength. 

From the days of Moltke onwards the German 
General Staff had studied deeply the problem of wa r 
on two fronts, and their studies had given them a 
very intimate knowledge of Russia's military 
strength, of which, as events proved, they had taken 
a more exact measure even than had Russia's own 
ally, France. Shortly after the South African War 
I paid a visit to Berlin, and there met the head of 
the Russian section of the German Great General 
Staff, an officer who, having been much in England, 
knew us well. He bemoaned the fact that he could 
never get his comrades on the General Staff either to 
understand or to take much interest in us. "There 
is no future in the English section," he said, "but I 
am very lucky where I am, because it is quite differ- 
ent as regards Russia. We have got to know Russia, 



Forty Days in 1914 



for our existence depends on it, and you may be 
sure that we do." 

The solution of the two-front problem, in the 
earliest stages, turned upon an accurate estimate of 
the amount of force required to hold Russia in check, 
with the aid of Austria, while the greatest possible 
strength was concentrated on the Western front 
in order to beat France quickly to her knees. Time 
was of the essence of the contract drawn by the 
German General Staff. To be sure of victory they 
needed a prompt and decisive success in the West, 
so that they could turn Eastwards before Russia was 
ready to strike with her whole power. In deciding 
on the methods they would employ to get these 
results they were greatly influenced by the events of 
the Russo-Japanese War, in which they found con- 
firmation of their own pet theory of war. They as- 
sumed that the long-drawn-out battles in Manchuria 
made it clearer than ever that a direct attack against 
a front, no matter in what superiority of force it 
was made, must, owing to the delaying power of 
modern quick-firing weapons, and particularly of 
machine-guns, be a slow and costly business, and 
that decisive success could only be obtained quickly 
by envelopment. 

Now the founder and trainer of the modern 
German General Staff", the elder Moltke, had taught 
and practised the theory that the surest road to 



The German Plan 



victory was that which led round the enemy's 
flank, and the greatest victories of 1870 had been 
won by envelopment in one form or another. This 
theory of envelopment was studied and examined 
by von Schlieffen, the predecessor, as the Kaiser's 
chief military adviser, of the younger Moltke, who 
was responsible for perfecting and carrying out the 
plan I am now describing. Von Schlieffen's problem 
was how to apply envelopment to war between na- 
tions in arms, how to get round millions where be- 
fore it had been a question of outflanking two 
or three hundred thousand. Naturally he did not 
disclose his plan, but he developed in at least one 
treatise, which created a deep impression in military 
Germany, the theory that the only way to obtain 
decisive results quickly in modern war was to seek 
the enemy's flanks and roll them up, for quick re- 
sults were Germany's special aim, a long-drawn-out 
war of exhaustion being abhorrent to her military 
philosophy. Von Schlieffen, who was much inter- 
ested at the time in the events of the South African 
War, sent for me while I was in Berlin, and after 
asking me a number of questions ended by say- 
ing: "Well, you have found in your Roberts a 
general who understands envelopment, and that is 
why you succeeded." Von Schlieffen was a very 
able man and a profound thinker, but his successor 
was little more than a well-trained German General 

5 



Forty Days in 1914 



Staff had believed for years, the theory which they 
a tactful manner, and the faculty of getting on 
with the Emperor. I am convinced that the secret 
of much that happened in the early phases of the war 
lies in the fact that an inherited theory, which had 
been elevated into a gospel, was applied by an in- 
dividual of but ordinary capacity. 

Having received the endorsement of the Emperor, 
the theory of envelopment was preached in the mili- 
tary text-books of Germany and practised sedu- 
lously at the German manoeuvres, yet it was obviously 
out of the question to get round the large and high- 
ly trained armies which France could place quickly 
on the 150 miles of common frontier. If the armies 
of Germany were confined to such narrow limits, 
they would find that frontier manned by the French 
from end to end before they could reach it in suf- 
ficient strength to develop their attack. Therefore, 
if the theory of war in which the German General 
Staff officer, with the advantages of a great name, 
held to be confirmed by the lessons of recent wars 
and by the developments of modern armaments, if 
this theory was to be translated into practice, 
it was absolutely necessary that a way round 
should be found by violating the neutrality 
of Belgium and Luxemburg. No explanation of 
the invasion of Belgium which Germany has is- 
sued squares even superficially with the known 

6 



The German Plan 



facts, and on military grounds alone it is 
out of the question that what happened should 
have happened except as the result of deliberate, 
cold-blooded, and careful calculation. Honour and 
treaty obligations counted as nothing in the Prus- 
sian military mind where expediency appeared to 
point the way, and it does not appear to have 
taken the Prussian military mind long to convince 
the German political mind that its plan was the 
only safe one and that all questions of morality 
must go to the wall. No doubt Germany did not 
want to fight Belgium ; fighting a secondary foe 
meant waste of time, men, and material, and delay 
in getting at the chief enemy; but she was quite de- 
termined to march through Belgium, and if Bel- 
gium refused to be terrorised into acquiescence, force 
would be necessary, so force was prepared. 

The mobilisation of modern armies, even when 
their arrangements have been as perfected as were 
those of Germany, is a matter of time, and is a 
very intricate and complicated process, dependent 
upon the exact execution of a detailed programme 
which is easily deranged. Therefore, in order to 
be able to prepare their armies for war in security 
all the great Continental nations had for long been 
accustomed to keep on their frontiers considerable 
forces of covering troops, so nearly mobilised as 
to be ready to take the field at a few hours' notice. 

7 



Forty Days in 1914 



There was not the least likelihood that Belgium 
would attempt to interfere with Germany's mobilisa- 
tion, but if Belgium were to be foolish enough to 
resist it was before all things necessary that the 
advance of the mobilised armies should not be de- 
layed by such resistance. Therefore one of the 
first items in Germany's programme was to arrange 
in peace time for a force of covering troops to be 
ready at very short notice to enter Belgium and 
clear the way for the armies that were to fol- 
low. The success of this plan depended on the rapid 
reduction of the Belgian fortresses on the Meuse, 
and in dealing with this problem the German Gen- 
eral Staff showed that they were ahead of the rest 
of military Europe, in that they were the first to 
appreciate the possibilities of modern howitzer 
fire. Their early experiments in this direction 
did not aim at the rapid reduction of for- 
tresses, but at the application of the howitzer and 
the high explosive shell to field warfare. For 
some time before the war they began to neglect 
their field guns, which in August 1914 were very 
inferior both to our own and to the French, and 
to develop the light and the medium howitzer. 
While they were doing this the advent of the 
aeroplane opened up to them new possibilities. 
In the direction of artillery fire from the air they 
were again ahead of both the French and ourselves, 

8 



The German Plan 



and they were quick to grasp its effect, when ap- 
plied to the use of heavy siege howitzers, upon the 
powers of resistance of modern fortresses. The 
Belgian fortresses consisted of a ring of detached 
forts, heavily armoured, and containing the for- 
tress artillery. The Germans understood that these 
forts, the positions of which were accurately known 
and clearly marked on the maps, would be helpless 
against the fire of heavy howitzers from concealed 
positions unknown to the defenders. The one 
element that was wanted to make success certain 
was that the fire of these howitzers should be 
accurately observed, and this element was provided 
by the aeroplane. 

I do not mean to imply that all this was as 
completely understood by the German General Staff 
before the war as it is to-day, for it is evident, 
from what happened at Liege, that they hoped to 
be able to reduce the place without waiting for the 
arrival of the siege artillery, but they did in fact 
have the right kind of weapon ready when the need 
arose, and appear to have formed a much truer 
estimate of the powers of resistance of the Belgian 
fortresses than did the soldiers of the Entente 
Powers. 

Having found the means to overcome the re- 
sistance of Belgium in the time available, if she 
should dare to oppose their military power, the 

9 



Forty Days in 1914 



German General Staff were able to complete their 
plans for the destruction of the French Army. 
They proposed to leave in the East to hold off the 
Russian armies with the help of Austria less than 
one-third of the total forces they would have avail- 
able on mobilisation, while more than two-thirds 
were concentrated in the West. But force alone 
was not sufficient for the success of their plan. If 
they were to get a quick decision against the 
numerous and highly efficient armies of the French 
Republic, some element of surprise was necessary. 
Now the size of the German active army, that is 
the army kept under training in peace time, and 
the position of each of its corps were perfectly 
well known to the military world. There was 
therefore no great difficulty in calculating the time 
required to mobilise these corps and move them 
into position on the frontiers. It was also well 
known that Germany had a large surplus of trained 
men above those needed to bring the active corps 
up to their war strength, and that she had made 
arrangements to create out of these men a num- 
ber of reserve formations; but it was not known 
how many these would be or how quickly they 
could be placed in the field. The German Gen- 
eral Staff, in fact, knew that the French would 
be uncertain both as to the number of German 
troops that would be left to watch Russia in the 

10 



The German Plan 



East, and as to the number of reserve corps which 
could be placed in the field in the opening phases 
of the war, and they proposed to use these elements 
of uncertainty to obtain the surprise which they 
desired, first by completing immediately the forma- 
tion of a large number of reserve corps, and sec- 
ondly, having in this way very considerably in- 
creased their available force, by bringing to the 
West a very high proportion of the whole. 

Actually during the period with which my ac- 
count deals, that is, during the first six weeks of 
the war, Germany placed on the Western front 
21 active and 13 reserve corps, and followed 
these soon after with 4 more reserve corps. All 
these reserve corps were not ready at the same 
time, but the first 13 appeared in the field early 
enough to make it justifiable to include them in 
the original grouping of the German armies. Now, 
in considering this grouping the German General 
Staff were no doubt influenced by the facts that 
the arrangements of the French railways, and the 
location of the French corps in peace time, lent 
themselves to a rapid concentration of the main 
French forces on the Franco-German frontier, and 
they doubtless anticipated from this and from 
their knowledge of the French character that the 
French would take the offensive into Alsace and 
Lorraine. It is also highly probable that they 

11 



Forty Days in 1914 



calculated that the French Government would be 
influenced by considerations of morality, and would 
not enter Belgium until invited to do so by the 
Government of that country. 

In comparing the opposing forces it is most con- 
venient to take divisions as the basis, because at 
the beginning of the war the division was approx- 
imately of the same size in all armies. The 21 
active and the 13 reserve corps, 1 which the Ger- 
man General Staff proposed to deploy on the 
Western front, totalled 68 divisions — I am leaving 
cavalry divisions for the present out of account. 
They had to reckon that this force might be op- 
posed by the little Belgian Army of 6 divisions, 
possibly by the English Expeditionary Force of 
6 divisions, and the French Army of 4'5 active and 
27 reserve divisions, or 84 divisions in all, while the 
French in addition were known to have a consider- 
able number of Territorial troops. This on paper 
looks a formidable array to attempt to overwhelm 
quickly with a force of 68 divisions; but there 
were many factors which simplified the problem 
when it was examined more closely. In the first 
place the little Belgian Army stood alone and could 
not be supported in time either by France or by 
England, while it was beyond the bounds of prob- 

1 A corps at this time normally consisted of 2 divisions, with 
other troops chiefly artillery. 

12 



The German Plan 



ability that the Belgian Government would permit 
their army to abandon the country to its fate, 
and march at once to join the French armies. 
Therefore there was every reason to expect that it 
would be possible either to overwhelm the Belgian 
Army completely and quickly, or, at the worst, to 
lock it up in its fortresses, where it could be held 
by reserve formations while the main German 
armies were marching on France. If Great Britain 
intervened in the war, which was by no means 
certain to the German mind, she would be late in 
the field, because her troops had to be shipped across 
the Channel, and the British military system did 
not lend itself to very rapid mobilisation, while 
the plan of a great enveloping movement through 
Belgium would tend, when prolonged into France, 
to cut the communications between the Channel 
ports and the South and prevent the despatch of 
British reinforcements. Of the French Army at 
least 3 active divisions had to come from North 
Africa, and would probably be late, many of the 
reserve divisions would be required for fortress gar- 
risons, and the Territorial troops were known to be 
lacking in artillery, and to be incompletely trained. 
Such then were probably the chief considerations 
which the German General Staff had before them 
when shaping their plan of campaign. They decided 
to draw up their armies on the Western front in two 

13 



Forty Days in 1914 



groups : * the first, which was to be the principal 
means of obtaining the quick decision they sought, 
along the Belgian frontier; the second, which was 
to meet and counter the probable French invasion 
of Lorraine and pin the main French forces in the 
south, was to be formed on the southern frontier 
of Luxemburg and in Lorraine. These two 
groups were to be connected bj a comparatively 
weak link, and a fourth, and also weak, group 
was to take post in the extreme south and watch 
the Vosges and Alsace. The first group, composed 
of the First, Second, and Third Armies under von 
Kluck, von Biilow, and von Hausen respectively, 
comprised no less than 16 corps (32 divisions) and 
a large force of cavalry, nearly one-half of the 
German forces in the West. The second group 
consisted of the Fifth and Sixth Armies, under the 
German Crown Prince and the Bavarian Crown 
Prince Rupprecht, and amounted to 12 corps 
(24 divisions). The connecting-link between the 
two groups was provided by the Fourth Army, 
under the Duke Albrecht of Wiirtemberg, who 
commanded 4 corps (8 divisions), and lastly, on 
the south, lay the Seventh Army under von 
Heeringen, with 2 corps (4 divisions) and some 
reserve formations, and troops from the garrisons 
of Metz and Strassburg. 
1 For the original grouping of the German armies see Map I. 
14 



The German Plan 



There were two dangers to which this distribu- 
tion exposed the German forces. The first was 
that a French offensive into Alsace and Lorraine 
might overwhelm the weak left flank under von 
Heeringen and lead to the envelopment of the 
armies of the two Crown Princes from the south, 
the second was that the weak link between the 
two main groups might be snapped by a French 
attack in force upon it, and the flanks of either or 
both of these groups be assailed. In appreciating 
these risks they were most certainly guided by the 
principles I have already outlined. They would 
argue that both the danger points lay in difficult 
and highly defensible country, the Vosges on the 
south and the Ardennes in the centre, that in such 
country their machine - guns, which they had 
developed highly both in numbers and efficiency, 
would have great delaying power, and the French 
75*8, the crack weapon of their chief enemy, little 
scope. In fact they proposed to make skilful use 
of the nature of the country on the frontier so as 
to increase the weight of the blows they intended 
to deliver. The plan in the main hinged on the 
German belief that a frontal advance even against 
weak forces must be slow, and that therefore the 
armies of the two Crown Princes in the south 
must make their weight felt before a French 
advance into the Vosges had got very far, and that 

15 



Forty Bays in 1914 



the great enveloping movement through Belgium, 
the strength of which they trusted would not be 
anticipated by the French, would become effective 
before an attack on their centre could make enough 
progress to be dangerous. 

The German plan was in conception bold, 
simple, and based upon a careful abstract study of 
war. It was at the same time utterly ruthless and 
immoral in its cold-blooded contempt of national 
pledges and of the rights of the weak, and was 
fundamentally defective in its disregard of the 
psychology both of potential enemies and of possible 
allies. It was, in fact, a chef d'oewvre of Prussian 
militarism naked and unashamed, and, like all 
plans which defy the laws of morality, it contained 
the germs of weakness which were to bring it to 
failure. For it made Great Britain a certain enemy, 
Italy a certain neutral, and turned against Germany 
the sentiment of the greater part of the civilised 
world. Had it been carried through in the field 
with the skill with which it had been drawn up in 
the offices of the Great General Staff, it might have 
encompassed the destruction of our first five divi- 
sions, the fall of Paris, and the occupation of 
Northern France, but even so great a measure of 
success would not have brought victory over 
enemies who felt that life would not be worth 
living if such a plan and such methods were per- 

16 



The German Plan 



mitted to triumph. Luckily we were not put to 
so terrible a test, for though the plan was good 
its execution was faulty, and, as will be seen, 
adherence to one idea caused opportunity after 
opportunity to be missed. 

I do not wish to suggest that it was in any sense 
a rigid plan, or that the direction and objective of 
the great enveloping movement was fixed at the 
time when the march into Belgium began. The 
Germans are too good soldiers to commit a stupidity 
of that kind. War, so far as concerns the higher 
command, is a conflict between minds, and each 
Headquarters can only guess what is going on in the 
other. The German Headquarters could only con- 
jecture what the Belgian Army would do; they 
could only guess whether, if Great Britain came 
into the war, her army would come at once to the 
help of Belgium, or prolong the French left, or lie 
back behind it; they could only surmise how far 
north the French left would extend. Moltke had 
always taught that the preparation of a plan of 
campaign in detail should not be carried further 
than the first contact with the opposing troops, all 
beyond that depending upon the unforeseeable, the 
action of the enemy, who usually does what is least 
expected. In one of those flashes of humour which 
very occasionally light up his valuable but porten- 
tously dull pronouncements, he once said to his staff 

X1S 



Forty Days in 1914 



in criticism of a military exercise: "Gentlemen, I 
have observed that there are always three courses 
open to the enemy, and that he usually takes the 
fourth." In that teaching the German General Staff 
of the present day has been brought up ; but 
fortunately for the world the successors of the elder 
Moltke were not in 1914 of his calibre, and though 
their plan was flexible and adaptable to the changes 
and chances of war, the idea of envelopment had 
become with them such a fetish that it was for a 
time at least regarded consciously or subconsciously 
as an end in itself rather than as a means to the 
one end of operations of war — the decisive defeat of 
the enemy. 



CHAPTER II 

THE FRENCH PLAN 

Though I propose to follow the course of events 
mainly from the German side my object is to make 
clearer the part played by our Expeditionary Force 
in the opening phase of the war, and for this it will 
be necessary from time to time to look at events 
both from our own and from the French point of 
view, and to examine the Allied scheme on the 
Western front as a whole. The French plan was, 
as might have been expected from the spirit and 
training of the French Army, offensive, the object 
being to carry the war into Germany as quickly as 
possible. Russian co-operation was assured, Italy 
had fallen out with the Triple Alliance, and, once 
it was known that English help was forthcoming, 
France had every reason to suppose that she would 
have sufficient force to carry through her plans, 
for there was no great disparity in strength between 
the active armies of France and Germany. To 
obtain an approach to equality France, with her 
much smaller population, had had to keep with the 
colours in peace time a higher proportion of her 

19 



Forty Days in 1914- 



manhood of military age than had her enemy, and 
the military superiority of Germany at the outbreak 
of war lay mainly in the mass of trained men who 
had passed through the ranks and were no longer in 
the active army. The French Headquarters could 
not know how the enemy would solve the two prob- 
lems which would decide the strength of the armies 
to be mobilised against them. Neither France nor 
any of her Allies suspected that Germany would 
dare to concentrate so great a proportion of her 
total strength on the Western front, nor was the 
perfection to which Germany had brought her 
arrangements for mobilising rapidly her reserve 
formations appreciated; and these two factors had, 
as will be seen, very great influence on the early 
course of the war in the West. But this difficulty 
in gauging accurately the enemy's strength in the 
West was not the only handicap from which French 
Headquarters suffered. 

Unlike the German, the French Government 
paid due respect to the rights of others, and there- 
fore the French soldiers were limited in their plans 
of offence to direct attack across the German 
frontier between Metz and Switzerland, and a great 
envelopment, such as Germany carried through, 
was excluded on moral grounds. The French 
invasion of Alsace and Lorraine was not therefore, 
as has sometimes been said, a movement dictated 

20 



The French Plan 



by sentimental and political considerations. It 
was the one alternative either to waiting passively 
for the enemy's attack, and exposing French 
territory to the ravages of war, without an effort 
to prevent such a disaster, or to outvying the 
enemy in immorality by transferring the scene of 
battle to the country of a weak and neutral power. 
These factors governed the arrangements for the 
first grouping of the French Army, which was 
designed to be as follows : x an Alsace group of 
5 divisions with 4 reserve divisions was to assemble 
about Belfort; along the Lorraine frontier south 
of Metz the main offensive group, consisting of the 
First Army of 4 corps (8 divisions) under General 
Dubail, and the Second Army of 5 corps (10 divi- 
sions) and 3 reserve divisions under General de 
Castelnau; the Third Army of 4 corps (8 divisions) 
and 3 reserve divisions under General Ruffey 
assembled round Verdun; the Fifth Army of 
3 corps (6 divisions) and 3 reserve divisions under 
General de Lanrezac watched the exits of the 
Ardennes from Belgian Luxemburg as far north as 
the Belgian frontier near Rocroi; a Fourth Army 
of 4 corps (8 divisions) and % reserve divisions 
under General Langle de Cary was in reserve behind 
the centre. Thus Joffre had a total force for the 
field of 45 active and 15 reserve divisions. This 
1 This grouping of the French armies is shown on Map I. 
21 



Forty Days in 1914- 



grouping shows that the French Commander-in- 
Chief intended to employ, for an offensive across the 
Franco-German frontier, 30 out of his available 
60 divisions, more than half his active troops being 
included in the 30, which could be readily reinforced 
from the Fourth Army in reserve. It also shows 
that he was prepared for the violation of the 
neutrality of Luxemburg, and of that part of 
Belgium south of the Meuse, but that he had not 
thought it probable that Germany would be strong 
enough to force the Meuse, brush aside the opposi- 
tion of Belgium, and march through the plains 
of that country. The possibility of such an 
eventuality does not, however, appear to have 
been overlooked, for the position of the Fourth 
Army in reserve was such that it could be pushed 
forward into the Ardennes, so as to strike at the 
flank and communications of any German force 
attempting a wide turning movement by the north, 
while the Fifth Army took ground to its left, so as to 
meet the enemy if he advanced north of the Meuse. 
When the first groupings of the opposing armies 
are compared, we get at once the key to the 
mentality of the French and German leaders, and 
to the principles which guided them. As might be 
expected, these principles were the outcome of special 
study of the particular problems which confronted 
each nation, and in each case they show the influ- 



The French Plan 



ence of national thought and character. Strategy is 
not an abstract science, concerned with the group- 
ing and movements of pieces on a level board, but 
has to occupy itself with the political questions of 
the day, with a most minute and careful study of 
the topography of the theatre of war, with examina- 
tion of the time in which troops can be moved from 
one area to another, both by friend and by foe, 
and, above all, it is a clash of human minds, each 
with at best a very imperfect knowledge of the 
problem of the other, and each dealing with men 
of flesh and blood, who have limited powers of 
endurance, and require to be fed, clothed, equipped, 
and provided with the means to enable them to 
fight in the best possible conditions. 

Consideration of all these factors by the French 
and German General Staffs during the years which 
preceded the outbreak of war had led each of them 
to inculcate certain methods of procedure, which 
were sometimes labelled, erroneously, the French 
and German doctrines of war. They were not 
doctrines applicable to war in general, but solutions 
of the special problems of a war between the 
Central Powers and the Entente in Western Europe. 

The Germans, as we have seen, required quick 
results, and they relied upon obtaining them by 
concentrating from the very outset superior numbers 
on those parts of the front where they wished to 



Forty Days in 1914 



obtain the decision, that is, particularly against the 
Allied left flank, and by the more rapid effect of 
attack by envelopment as compared with that of 
frontal attack. They had great confidence in the 
perfection of the training, organisation, and equip- 
ment of their armies, and in the capacity of their 
General Staff to deal promptly and accurately with 
the complicated problems of time and space which 
their plan of campaign involved. The General Staff 
had gained the concurrence of the statesmen in the 
plan, and left them to devise a plausible story which 
should soothe such conscience as the German 
people possessed, and if possible hoodwink the 
neutral world; and, as the first article in the creed 
of the German Governments had, since the days 
of Bismarck, been that victory covers all sins, 
while from the Kaiser downwards all were absolutely 
persuaded that their arms were invincible, there 
had been no difficulty in the application of the old 
maxim that policy and strategy should go hand 
in hand. The principle of the German General 
Staff was then (to use a phrase dear to the German 
soldier) to impose their will upon the enemy from 
the outset, to compel him to conform to their plans, 
and, by employing at once the greatest possible 
force upon one general scheme, to leave him no 
time for counter-manoeuvre. The defects of the 
plan, which sprang from the innate conceit of the 

24* 



The French Plan 



Prussian mind, lay in the failure to grasp its effect 
upon certain or potential enemies and in its under- 
estimate of the forces which it would bring into 
the field against Germany. The Prussian Junker 
in fact believed that Great Britain and Belgium 
would seize any excuse to avoid having to face 
the might of Germany. To these defects must be 
added a certain rigidity of thought, which long 
study of the problem of war against France upon 
one fixed principle had produced in the minds of 
the German leaders. 

The French General Staff, limited by political 
conditions in their field of manoeuvre, could not 
by any possibility use, as the Germans proposed to 
do, the whole of their available offensive power upon 
one prearranged plan, because there was no room 
on the stretch of frontier, much of it mountainous, 
between Basle and Metz, for the employment of 
such masses of troops. They had therefore to 
trust that the rapidity of mobilisation would enable 
them to forestall the enemy, and upset his con- 
centration before it was complete ; while a consider- 
able body of troops was held in reserve as a mass 
of manoeuvre, ready either to confirm and complete 
a success or to ward off any danger which might 
suddenly develop. It was not because they did 
not believe in envelopment that they did not 
attempt it. for Joffre did in fact bring about the 



Forty Days in 1914 



breakdown of the enemy's plans by enveloping 
one of the German flanks at the very first oppor- 
tunity he had of carrying out such a manoeuvre; 
but because under the particular political and 
geographical conditions which confronted the 
French at the outbreak of the war envelopment 
was impossible. That this would be so had been 
long recognised by French students of war and 
particularly by Foch, who had taught the French 
Staff how to counter envelopment by a return to the 
Napoleonic principle of manoeuvre with a general 
reserve. The French had therefore by force of 
circumstances adopted an opportunist policy, which 
sought rather to create occasions for the action of 
a reserve held back for the purpose of delivering 
a decisive blow at the right time and place, than 
to put the whole of their armies into line at once, 
each having from the first assigned to it a mission 
in accordance with a plan prepared before the enemy 
had been encountered. 

So throughout the period of the war which I 
am about to describe we find Joffre, as soon as he 
has sent off his reserve upon some task, at once 
creating another, and continuously on the watch for 
opportunities, until at last the opportunity comes. 

France declared war on the evening of August 3, 
and the next morning General Joffre announced 
this fact to his troops in the following order; — • 



The French Plan 



War is declared. Italy has issued a declaration 
of her complete neutrality. Germany will endeavour, 
by spreading false information, to cause us to violate 
the neutrality of Belgium. All our troops are expressly 
forbidden, until orders to the contrary are issued, to 
enter Belgium or Swiss territory even with patrols or 
single horsemen. No flying is to take place over these 
territories. 

Not until the evening of August 5, that is, after 
Germany had violated the neutrality of Belgium, 
and Belgium had appealed to the Allies for help, 
was the following order issued: 

(1) French airships and aeroplanes are authorised 
to fly over Belgian territory. As, however, the Belgian 
troops had orders up till yesterday to fire at all air- 
craft, and orders to the contrary may not yet be known 
to all concerned, pilots are to be directed to fly high. 

(2) Cavalry reconnaissances may also proceed into 
Belgian territory, but they are not yet to be supported 
by large detachments. . . . 

(3) All parties entering Belgium are to be specially 
warned that they are entering the country of a friendly 
and Allied Power. They are not to carry out requisi- 
tions of any kind until the agreement with regard to 
these, which is in preparation, has been made known. 
They are only to make voluntary purchases against cash 
payments. 

These orders do honour to the French Govern- 
ment, and display their anxiety to respect the rights 
and wishes of an Ally, and if anything were needed 

n 



Forty Days in 1914 



to do so, they should suffice to bring France the 
sympathy and support of the civilised world, for 
this scrupulous respect for the code of national 
honour gave the unprincipled enemy an advantage 
from which he profited to the full. Had it been 
possible to make preparations earlier for obtain- 
ing information as to what was happening on the 
German-Belgian frontier, the surprise which the 
Germans sprang upon the Allies at the time of the 
battle of Mons would have been unmasked much 
sooner and the story of the war materially changed. 
As it was, the Germans had leisure to complete 
their arrangements for concealing their designs 
before the French Headquarters could get their 
means of investigation to work. 

On August 7 1 the French covering troops about 
Belfort moved forward into Alsace, and occupied 
Mulhausen on the 8th, but were unable to hold the 
town in face of superior German forces, and fell 
back the next day. By August 14 the First and 
Second Armies and the Alsace group were ready 
for the general advance, and Alsace and Lorraine 
were invaded in force. Mulhausen was again 
occupied, the outskirts of Colmar were reached, 
and patrols pushed forward towards the Rhine, 
while the main chain of the Vosges as far east as 
the Donon was secured. In Lorraine the First 
1 For these events see Map I. 
28 



The French Plan 



and Second Armies fought their way forward 
against steadily increasing opposition, and on the 
19th penetrated as far as Saarburg, cutting direct 
communication between Strassburg and Metz. 
But before the French main offensive had reached 
its full development events in the north had forced 
Joffre to divert troops from the south, and it was a 
weakened force which on the 20th met the Sixth and 
Seventh German Armies advancing to the attack, 
the enemy's main blow falling on their northern 
flank between Saarburg and Metz. Generals Dubail 
and de Castelnau were forced slowly back to 
positions covering Nancy and Luneville, where we 
may leave them for the present to return to the 
events on the extreme left of the French line. 

Here to the north of Sedan, on the frontier of 
Belgian Luxemburg, was placed in the first con- 
centration General Sordet's cavalry corps of three 
divisions. This corps crossed the Belgian frontier 
on August 6, and advancing south of the Meuse 
on the 8th got to within a few miles of Liege, but 
without discovering any large bodies of German 
troops. The French cavalry then fell back again 
towards the frontier, and after a short rest carried 
out further reconnaissances between the 11th and 
the 15th through the Ardennes towards Neuf- 
chateau, and north of the Meuse towards Namur 
and Charleroi. All these enterprises brought 

29 



Forty Days in 1914 



only negative results. Eastern Belgium had been 
explored and no considerable German forces had 
been discovered on the move against the French left 
flank. The French Headquarters to that extent 
found confirmation of their views that such a 
movement was improbable. Sordet's expedition 
was in fact too early to find the German columns 
on the march, and his troopers could not get through 
far enough to discover and interrupt the enemy's 
concentrations. The German cavalry when met 
gave way, but did not allow their screen to be 
pierced, and the French horsemen found great 
difficulty in obtaining information in face of the 
rifle and machine-gun fire coming from the cyclists 
and Jagers brought up in motor lorries in support 
of the German cavalry. 

This first experiment in cavalry reconnaissance 
on a large scale in the present war illustrates 
very clearly how easily the old eyes of the army 
can, in these days, be blinded by an enemy 
who knows how to make skilful use of rifles 
and machine-guns. The text-book opening of a 
great war which had fired the imagination of the 
Continental cavalryman proved to be a fiction. 
The French cavalry encountered no great masses 
of opposing horsemen, to be ridden down in thrilling 
charges. Instead they were met by rifle fire coming 
from they knew not where, fire to which with their 

30 



The French Plan 



light carbines they could make no effective reply. 
Nor were the new eyes much more successful in 
clearing up the fog of war. The distances from 
their bases in France to the Meuse north of Huy, 
to which place, and to Liege still farther north, the 
German columns marched to cross the river, made 
it impossible for the French aircraft of those days 
to keep up regular and sustained reconnaissances 
of the roads along which the enemy was moving. 
The part of Belgium which lies east of the Meuse 
is densely wooded, and in particular the forests of 
the Ardennes formed an impenetrable screen to 
the eyes of the French airmen. Further, the enemy 
frequently took the precaution of marching his 
infantry by night. 

It had been very generally supposed before 
the war that air reconnaissances would make 
surprise impossible, and that generals would find 
themselves in the happy position of no longer 
having to guess, like Wellington, at what was 
happening on the other side of the hill. In practice, 
however, human ingenuity usually arrives at some 
more or less effective antidote to every new develop- 
ment of science which is applied to war. Revolu- 
tions in warfare, which are sometimes announced 
as the necessary and immediate consequence of a 
startling invention, are in fact slow to mature. 
In the story which I am now telling of the first 

31 



Forty Days in 1914 



six weeks of the war, will be found, successfully 
carried through, one by each side, two great sur- 
prises, each as dramatic and as far-reaching in its 
consequences as any to be found in military history. 
There was nothing in this early exploration to 
shake the opinion of French Headquarters that 
the enemy was unlikely to advance in strength 
north of the valley of the Meuse, and it was 
not until August 15 that General Joffre received 
definite information that large German forces 
were moving westwards through Liege. He at 
once issued orders to strengthen his left, and to 
extend it northwards to meet the threatened 
enveloping movement of the enemy. The Fifth 
Army was ordered to move across the Belgian 
frontier into the angle formed by the Sambre and 
the Meuse between Charleroi, Namur, and Dinant, 
and it was reinforced by the Eighteenth Corps, 
which was withdrawn from the Second Army, 
then moving forward into Lorraine. The Second 
Army had also to give up the Ninth Corps, and 
the three divisions from North Africa, which were 
to have joined in the invasion of Alsace, were sent 
northwards. Thus the effect of the discovery that 
the enemy was in strength in the north was to 
reduce the main French striking force in the south 
by no fewer than seven divisions. The Fourth 
Army, which had been in reserve, was moved up 

32 



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MAP I. WESTERN THEATRE OF WAR 

/f Concentration of German Armies Q^ Army;, 

I s . 1 Concentration of French Armies 

Marches of von Muck's Corps, I5 t . h August - 5^ Sept. \ 

Marches of British Corps, 23 ro 'August- 5 th 'Sept. 
The Roman numerals indicate the number of theCorps, the Arabic numerals the date. 
Railways -,. - - Canals .... 
English Miles 

10 O 10 ZO 30 40 50 




J 




I 



The French Plan 



to the frontier of Belgian Luxemburg to take the 
place vacated by the Fifth Army and to connect 
that army with the Third. Lastly, as it was 
definitely known that a large force of German 
Cavalry, estimated at three cavalry divisions at 
least, had crossed the Meuse and was moving west- 
wards through Belgium, it was necessary to take 
precautions against raids into French Flanders, 
which the enemy might attempt, either in order 
to interfere with the concentration of the British 
Expeditionary Force then on its way, or even to 
interrupt communication between the Channel 
ports and the rest of France. General d'Amade 
was therefore sent to Arras to take command of 
a group of Territorial divisions consisting of the 
Eighty-fourth at Douai, the Eighty-second at Ar- 
ras, and the Eighty-first about St. Omer. To this 
group was added in a few days' time the Eighty- 
eighth Territorial Division, which assembled south 
of Lille, while two reserve divisions from the 
garrison of Paris were placed under orders to move 
north to join General d'Amade's command. We 
shall meet most of these troops again during the 
retreat of the British Army from Mons. 

These movements were not completed until 
August 21, and at that time French Headquarters 
were still unaware of the full strength which 
the enemy was bringing against them, and more 

33 



Forty Days in 1914 



J 



especially of the strength of the enemy's forces mov- 
ing north of the Meuse through Belgium. General 
Joffre was far from renouncing all idea of attack. 
He had been forced to weaken his offensive in the 
south, but this was to be remedied by a blow in the 
north, and therefore his central reserve, the Fourth 
Army, was brought up towards the Ardennes, ready 
to strike if it were found that the enemy were 
moving in force north of the Meuse, while if the 
Germans were not in strength there the British 
would come in on the left of the Fifth Army and 
with it envelop the German right. The idea still 
prevailed that the Germans could not be strong 
enough to secure their centre in the Ardennes 
against attack and at the same time carry out a 
great attack upon the Allied left. 

By August 20 * the British Expeditionary Force 
of a cavalry division and 2 corps, each of 2 divi- 
sions, in all about 70,000 combatants, had com- 
pleted its concentration just south of Maubeuge, 
and on the 21st began its march northward, the 
British cavalry advancing towards the Canal de 
Conde, to the east of Mons, and gaining touch 
with General Sordet's cavalry on its right. On 
August 22 the First and Second British Corps 
reached positions about Mons, the First Corps, on 
the right, being in touch with the left corps of 
*For these movements see Map II. 
34t 



The French Plan 



General de Lanrezac's Fifth Army near Thuin, 
south-west of Charleroi. This left corps was the 
Eighteenth, which had entrained at Toul on re- 
ceiving orders to leave the Second French Army, 
had detrained at Avesnes to the south of Maubeuge 
at the same time that the British were assembling, 
and had marched thence across the Belgian frontier 
towards Marchienne. Farther to the right about 
Charleroi lay the Third French Corps, while the 
Tenth Corps was disposed along the Sambre 
between Charleroi and Namur, and the First 
Corps on the line of the Meuse, between Namur 
and Dinant. The Tenth and Third Corps were 
by this time being reinforced each by one of the 
French divisions from North Africa. The First 
Corps expected a reserve division, the Fifty-first, 
which had not actually arrived, and two reserve 
divisions were on their way to join the Eighteenth 
Corps, these reinforcements bringing General de 
Lanrezac's Fifth Army up to a total of 280,000 
men, but of these some 80,000 were not actually 
in place ; so that about the time when the German 
blow first fell on the Franco-British left flank there 
were, exclusive of the garrison of Namur, 270,000 
Franco-British troops in position between Dinant, 
Namur, and Mons, facing German armies which, 
as we shall see, totalled over 400,000 men. Even 
as late as August 22 the view held at French 

35 



Forty Days in 191 A 



Headquarters appears to have been that it would 
be possible to envelop the Germans north of the 
Meuse by an advance of the British Army and 
of the French Fifth Army pivoting on Namur, 
and it was with this general idea of an advance to 
be continued northwards into Belgium that our 
army marched to Mons on August 22. 

On the morning of August 23 the two reserve 
divisions attached to the French Eighteenth Corps, 
the Fifty-third and the Sixty-ninth, reached the 
line Montignies — Jeumont, just north-east of Mau- 
beuge and directly behind the point of junction of 
the French left and the British right. But by then 
the German surprise had already been sprung, the 
French Fifth Army had been heavily attacked, 
and a few hours later both General Joffre and Sir 
John French were for the first time aware of the 
imminent peril which menaced the Allied left wing. 
In order to make the extent of this surprise clear 
I cannot do better than quote Sir John French's 
first despatch. He says : 1 

At 6 a.m., on August 23, I assembled the commanders 
of the First and Second Corps and Cavalry Division 
at a point close to the position and explained the 
general situation of the Allies, and what I understood 

1 Naval and Military Dispatches relating to Operations in the 
War, September-October and November, 1914. London: H.M. 
Stationery Office, 1914, p. 19, para. 2. 

36 



The French Plan 



to be General Joffre's plan. I discussed with them at 
some length the immediate situation in front of us. 

From information I received from French Head- 
quarters I understood that little more than one, or at 
most two, of the enemy's Army Corps, with perhaps 
one Cavalry Division, were in front of my position; 
and I was aware of no outflanking movement by the 
enemy. I was confirmed in this opinion by the fact 
that my patrols encountered no undue opposition in 
their reconnoitring operations. The observations of my 
aeroplanes seemed also to bear out this estimate. 

About 3 p.m. on Sunday, the 23rd, reports began 
coming in to the effect that the enemy was commencing 
an attack on the Mons line, apparently in some strength. 

The right of the Third Division, under General 
Hamilton, was at Mons, which formed a somewhat 
dangerous salient; and I directed the Commander of 
the Second Corps to be careful not to keep the troops 
too long on this salient, but, if threatened seriously, 
to draw back the centre behind Mons. This was done 
before dark. In the meantime, about 5 p.m. I received 
a most unexpected message from General Joffre by 
telegraph, telling me that at least three German Corps, 
viz. a reserve corps, the Fourth Corps and the Ninth 
Corps, were moving on my position in front, and that 
the Second Corps was engaged in a turning movement 
from the direction of Tournay. He also informed me 
that the two reserve French Divisions and the Fifth 
French Army on my right were retiring, the Germans 
having on the previous day gained possession of the 
passages of the Sambre between Charleroi and Namur. 

37 



CHAPTER III 

THE GERMAN MARCH THROUGH BELGIUM 1 

The three German armies destined for the attack 
on the Allied left flank were concentrated, the 
First, under von Kluck, about Aix-la-Chapelle, 
the Second, under von Biilow, about Malmedy 
and Stavelo, and the Third, under von Hausen, 
about Priin. They were to move into Belgium, 
the First Army by Liege, the Second mainly through 
Huy and thence along the north bank of the Meuse 
upon Namur, the Third through the Ardennes by 
Marche on Dinant. Each army required several 
roads, but these places give the general direction 
of the line of march. Von Kluck's army, which 
was to be on the outside of the wheel, and was 
therefore intended to carry out the final envelop- 
ment, had the most difficult task and was con- 
siderably the strongest. It consisted of no less 
than seven corps (14 divisions), the Second, the 
Third, Third Reserve, Fourth, Fourth Reserve, 
Ninth, and Ninth Reserve, and three cavalry 
divisions, the Second, Fourth, and Ninth. Two of 
*See Map I. 
38 



The German March through Belgium 

these corps, the Third Reserve and Ninth Reserve, 
were, as will be seen, left in Belgium for a time, 
but it is probable that at first at least they formed 
part of von Kluck's command. Two of the 
cavalry divisions, the Second and Fourth, formed a 
cavalry corps under the command of von Marwitz, 
and may possibly have been independent of von 
Kluck ; but as they worked throughout in the 
closest touch with his army it is reasonable to 
consider them as under his orders. 

As I explained in the first chapter, a very small 
proportion of the fighting strength of Germany 
was left on the Eastern frontier. Actually only 
four out of a total of twenty-five active corps 
were, with a number of reserve formations, to hold 
back the Russians till France had been defeated. 
It is necessary to keep this in mind in order to 
understand the early phases of the campaign in 
the West, throughout which the German General 
Staff had one eye on the East, and were gauging 
to a nicety the time available for the completion 
of their programme in France. Von Kluck's line 
of march was barred by the important fortress of 
Liege, and he had the longest way to go. There- 
fore not only was it of the first importance that he 
should be able to get through Liege as soon as 
possible, but the whole German plan of envelop- 
ment depended upon getting early possession of 



Forty Days in 1914 



the place, for within the circle of its forts lay the 
railway junction upon which centred the lines 
connecting Belgium, and northern France with 
Northern Germany, and without those railways the 
mass of troops assembling for the march round 
the Allied left could not be fed or furnished with 
the thousand-and-one things which an army must 
have if it is to keep the field. 

It must for these reasons have been a grievous 
disappointment to the German command when 
Belgium stoutly refused them permission to march 
their troops through her territory, but it is abun- 
dantly clear from the course of events that they had 
drawn up plans long beforehand to meet the 
possibility of Belgian resistance to their demands. 
It was von Kluek's army that was to march through 
Liege, but many of his corps came from the East, 
and not only would it cause delay to wait for these 
to come up in order to attack the fortress, but it 
was very important to conceal the presence on the 
Western front of troops whose natural task would 
be to oppose the Russians. Therefore the duty of 
clearing the road for von Kluck fell upon cover- 
ing troops from von Biilow's Second Army, which 
were drawn mainly from his Seventh and Tenth 
Corps. As these corps came from Westphalia 
and Hanover respectively, their presence on the 
Western front would be expected by the enemy, 

40 



The German March through Belgium 

and would not arouse any suspicions as to the 
real strength of the armies by which France was 
to be attacked. 

War was declared by France on the evening of 
August 3, and early on the following day the 
German Second and Fourth Cavalry Divisions 
entered Belgium and crossed the Meuse at Vise 
to the north of Liege, overcoming the resistance 
of a Belgian detachment holding the bridge. They 
then proceeded to cover on the west the attack on 
Liege. Similarly to the south, along the valley of 
the Meuse and in the Ardennes, the Ninth, Fifth, 
and Guard Cavalry Divisions established a screen 
covering the concentration of the Second and Third 
Armies, and this screen was, with the assistance of 
armoured cars, infantry cyclists, and Jagers brought 
up in lorries, effectively established before the 
French cavalry were free to cross the Belgian 
frontier. While the cavalry were moving into 
position the infantry of the Seventh and Tenth 
Corps marched on Liege, and after a last vain 
attempt to open a road by persuasion, attacked 
and drove in the Belgian outposts. The next day, 
August 5, von Emmich, the commander of the 
attacking troops, attempted to carry the place by 
assault, and failed with very heavy loss. 

Simultaneously with the attack on Liege, the 
attack on the moral of the Belgian people was 
41 



Forty Days in 191. 



begun. It is not my purpose to describe in any 
detail the German campaign of frightfulness in 
Belgium — that has already been done authoritatively 
with the aid of many who were brought into direct 
contact with its horrors. The savagery with 
which it was conducted has been ascribed to such 
various causes as exasperation at the heavy losses 
suffered in the capture of Liege, the natural 
brutality of the German soldiery, and anger at the 
audacity of little Belgium in daring to resist the 
commands of the War Lord of Europe. All these 
very probably, indeed one may say certainly, con- 
tributed to the rage of lust and cruelty which swept 
over such parts of Belgium as lay on the track of 
the German columns, but I am convinced that the 
vast amount of evidence which has been collected 
admits of no other conclusion than that the in- 
spiration came from above, and was as much part 
of the calculated and cold-blooded German plan 
as was the concentration on the frontier. It was, 
in fact, an element in the scheme to save the time 
which was so precious to the German General 
Staff, and to secure by terrorism, deliberately and 
scientifically applied to military purposes, the un- 
interrupted march of the main forces to their goal. 
The first attack on Liege on the morning of 
August 5 had been carried out mainly by troops 
of the Seventh Corps. The Belgian commandant, 

42 



The German March through Belgium 

General Leman, had been reinforced by the Third 
Belgian Division shortly before the attack was 
delivered, and had entrenched and manned the 
intervals between the detached forts. Von Emmich 
in his haste had tried to carry these entrenchments 
in a rush after what is now recognised as a short 
and inadequate artillery bombardment. This rash 
experiment had proved very costly, but time was 
of more value than men's lives. Troops of the 
Tenth Corps arrived during the afternoon from the 
south-east, and about the same time the first of 
von Kluck's infantry, the men of the Ninth Corps, 
who had crossed the Meuse to the north of Liege 
in the neighbourhood of Vise, came down on the 
fortress from the north. With these additions to his 
strength, and with an increased amount of artillery 
at his disposal, von jEmmich organised at fresh 
assault on a larger scale. During the late afternoon 
a bombardment was opened which continued until 
dark, and this was followed by a series of infantry 
attacks on the northern, eastern, and southern 
defences, which were pressed home throughout the 
night regardless of loss. By the morning of August 6 
the German infantry had forced their way between 
two of the eastern forts, but the Belgians still held 
the villages between the circle of forts and the town, 
and the Germans were too exhausted to follow up 
their success immediately. Thus it was not until 

43 



Forty Days in 1914 



the morning of August 7 that the town was entered, 
and before then the Third Belgian Division had 
evacuated the place, for General Leman, finding the 
Germans gradually encircling the fortress, and his 
defences pierced, ordered it away to join the Belgian 
Army, which was assembling behind the Gette, 
SO miles west of Liege, in order that this division 
might not be involved in the capitulation which he 
saw was inevitable. At the same time he deter- 
mined to hold the forts to the last, so as to prevent 
the Germans as long as possible from using the 
railways passing through Liege. 

The first hasty infantry assaults had proved 
too costly to be repeated, and once the town 
was entered the task of reducing the forts was 
left to the howitzers. To open a road for the siege 
train, which did not arrive until the 11th, the con- 
centrated fire of the heavy field howitzers was 
turned on the two easternmost forts immediately 
south of the Meuse, and these fell on the 9th and 
10th. On the 12th the siege train began its work, 
and the steel and cement cupolas which protected 
the guns of the forts were in turn smashed by the 
German heavy high explosive shell. Fort Lencin, 
which barred the main line of railway connecting 
Liege with Brussels, held out until the 15th, and 
there the gallant Leman was captured after he had 



The German March through Belgium 

been rendered senseless by the final explosion which 
destroyed the work. 

The brave resistance of the forts of Liege sent 
a thrill of admiration throughout the countries of 
the Entente Powers, but the actual military effect 
of this resistance was greatly exaggerated, because 
it was not possible to appreciate at the time 
the skill with which the Germans, in making their 
plans for the attack upon the place, had reduced 
the delay it would cause them. From first to 
last the siege lasted twelve days, and during the 
greater part of this time the mobilisation and 
concentration of von Kluck's army was proceeding. 
Several of his corps, as I have pointed out, had to 
come from great distances, and it is improbable 
that his main bodies could have been ready to 
march across the frontier before the 12th at the 
earliest. It is not less than four marches from the 
neighbourhood of Aix - la - Chapelle to the river 
Gette, about halfway between Liege and Brussels, 
and von Kluck had actually reached this river in 
force on the evening of August 17. Had the road 
been open it is improbable that he could have been 
there more than two days earlier, for it is unlikely 
that he would have dared to approach the main 
Belgian force with partially mobilised troops, small 
as it was in comparison with his great army. 
Even if he had done so, it is certain that he would 

45 



Forty Days in 1914 



have had to wait until his army was completely 
equipped and concentrated before marching south- 
ward against the left wing of the main Allied 
forces ; so that, apart from the serious losses that 
the Germans suffered, the military effect of the 
resistance of Liege may be estimated at a delay to 
von Kluck's Army of forty-eight hours in reaching 
the battlefield of Mons. 

This delay may appear very short and as hardly 
worth the sacrifices made by the brave defenders 
of the Belgian fortress, but, in fact, it was of 
priceless value. Had von Kluck's Army appeared 
north of Maubeuge two days earlier than it did, it 
is very possible that it would have caught the 
British Army and the French Fifth Army, which 
were, as we know, very incompletely informed as 
to its strength, much less prepared for battle than 
they were, and that neither would have been able 
to escape from disaster. At best they could only 
have retired immediately, without inflicting on the 
enemy the loss and delay which were later to give 
Joffre his opportunity. But this was not the only 
service which the defenders of Liege rendered to 
the cause of the Allies. The spectacle of a little 
army, partially trained and insufficiently equipped, 
standing up for King and country against the most 
powerful and perfect military machine of modern 
times was an inspiration to every soldier of the 

46 



The German March through Belgium 

Entente armies, and still more did the proud 
refusal of Belgium's King and people to admit that 
might is right, with the certainty before them of 
having to make such sacrifices for honour and faith 
as no nation in civilised times has been asked to 
endure, bring into the struggle against Germany 
moral forces which in her eagerness for immediate 
and material military results she despised and 
neglected. Even to-day Germany fails to grasp the 
effect on Great Britain of the violation of Belgian 
neutrality. The German people are deceived into 
believing that by the skill of their leaders and the 
valour of their troops a British attack on Germany 
through Belgium was just anticipated, and Eng- 
land's motive in entering the war is still held, not 
merely for purposes of propaganda, but in the mind 
of the German masses, to have been greed of gain 
and the annihilation of her chief commercial rival. 
The Hymn of Hate merely makes us smile, but it was 
a sincere expression of the popular conviction which 
yet prevails in Germany that England brought 
about the war for her own base ends, — so easy is 
it for an autocratic government to make its people 
think as they are told to think when it has drilled 
and disciplined them for generations. This failure 
to appreciate the psychology of her enemies is one 
of the weak spots in the German armour. It is 
responsible for the sinking of the Lusitania, the 

47 



Forty Days in 1914 



shooting of Miss Cavell, the bombing of open towns, 
the bombarding of Paris, and other methods of 
"frightfulness," the only military effect of which 
has been to increase the number of Germany's 
enemies, and to steel their hearts to endure all in 
order to remove for all time this pest which threatens 
civilisation. Perfect in many respects as have been 
the planning and organisation of the German 
General Staff — and I am here making no attempt 
to conceal their good points — they have failed 
because they are incapable of grasping the fact 
that there are higher forces in war than the scientific 
application of physical power to the gaining of an 
immediate military advantage. 

Before the last fort of Liege had fallen the 
Second and Fourth German Cavalry Divisions, 
which had been covering the siege on the west and 
south, set out to discover the strength and position 
of the Belgian Army, and attempted at the same 
time to secure the crossings over the Gette * for 
von Kluck's main bodies, which had completed 
their concentration round Aix-la-Chapelle. The 
Belgian forces watched the crossings of the Gette 
from near Diest, as far south as Jodoigne, with 
detachments from their main army, which lay 
between the Gette and the Dyle, and consisted 
of five infantry divisions, including the greater 
*See Map I. 
48 



The German March through Belgium 

part of the reduced and sorely tried Third Division 
escaped from Liege, and a cavalry division. The 
remaining Belgian division, the Fourth, was posted 
at Namur and the crossings of the Meuse immedi- 
ately below that fortress. On the 12th the German 
cavalry attacked the Belgians near Haelen, and after 
a sharp fight were repulsed, from which von Kluck 
must have gleaned that it would require infantry in 
force to drive back the little Belgian Army. He 
therefore made certain of being able to overcome 
any resistance he might meet with, and on the 
17th approached the Gette with three corps, the 
Second, Fourth, and Ninth, flanked on the north 
by the Second and on the south by the Fourth 
Cavalry Division. The remaining active corps 
of his army, the Third, and his three reserve corps 
followed at no great distance. The German 
advanced guards attacked the line of the Gette 
early on the 18th, and in the course of the morning 
succeeded in forcing their way across on the Belgian 
left at Haelen and Diest. Farther to the south 
they met with greater opposition, and it was not 
until the evening that the whole line of the river 
was in von Kluck's hands. By then it had become 
abundantly clear to the Belgian Commander-in- 
Chief that he was face to face with an enemy in 
greatly superior numbers, that the German cavalry 
were working steadily round his flanks, and that no 

49 



Forty Days in 1914 



French or British help could reach him in time to 
avert disaster if he held his ground. Sordet's 
cavalry had, indeed, appeared on the 18th near 
Gembloux, but had again been stopped by the 
rifle and machine-gun fire with which they had 
been received by the Jagers of von Kluck's cavalry 
corps, and had had to fall back without being able 
to gather any definite indications of the strength 
of the German forces. Left to itself the Belgian 
Army could only retreat or be overwhelmed, and 
it therefore withdrew behind the Dyle on the 
night of the 18th-19th, and on the morning of 
the 20th was within the circle of the outer forts 
of Antwerp. 

Von Kluck's road being thus opened, he pressed 
his advance with all possible vigour. 1 The trail of 
blood and outrage left by the Germans in their 
progress through Belgium makes it a matter of no 
great difficulty to trace the march of many of their 
corps. On the 19th, the Second Corps, after a short 
skirmish with a Belgian detachment covering the 
withdrawal of their army, passed through Aerschot 
and preceded and flanked by the Second Cavalry 
Division marched on to get round Brussels by the 
north and east of the Belgian capital. The Fourth 
Corps moved direct through Louvain on to Brussels, 
which it entered on the 20th, the Third Corps, on 
a The marches of von Kluck's Corps are shown on Map I. 
50 



The German March through Belgium 

its left, passing through the southern suburbs of 
the town to gain the main road to Hal and Mons. 
The last of von Kluck's active corps, the Ninth, 
marched west from the Gette towards Braine 
l'Alleud. The three reserve corps of the First 
German Army were in second line, but the only 
indication of the routes they followed is that the 
Ninth Reserve Corps made itself for ever infamous 
by the sack of Louvain. It and the Third Reserve 
Corps were sent towards Antwerp to watch the 
Belgian Army, while von Kluck consummated 
his great wheel to the south, which was now be- 
ginning. The Fourth Reserve Corps appears to 
have entered Brussels and to have remained in 
and about the town probably until the other two 
reserve corps were established in their position 
round Antwerp, for it did not appear at Mons. 

On the morning of August 21 the German 
plan of envelopment had taken definite shape, 
and all von Kluck's active corps were marching 
south-westwards from Brussels. The head of the 
Second was approaching Grammont, that of the 
Fourth was nearing Enghien, the Third Corps was 
passing through Hal, and the Ninth Braine l'Alleud. 
The march of the army was covered by the Fourth 
and Ninth Cavalry Divisions, which advanced 
towards the line of the canal which connects 
Charleroi, Mons, and Conde. The outer flank of the 

51 



Forty Days in 1914 



wheel was covered by the Second Cavalry Division, 
which moved towards Ghent and Audenarde. 

Von Billow's Second Army had, while von 
Kluck was moving through and round Brussels, 
got into position. On August 12 his advanced 
troops had seized the only railway bridge which 
spans the Meuse between Namur and Liege, that at 
Huy, and begun to pass to the left bank of the river. 
Both this army and the Third, to its south, had to 
cross the Ardennes, and the Second Army, of which 
the Seventh and Tenth Corps must have been 
delayed by the operations at Liege, could only 
cross the Meuse at a few points ; but as both 
armies had to wait upon von Kluck, who had 
much longer marches to make, these difficulties 
did not affect the perfect timing of the German 
deployment. 

The morning of the 21st found the Second Army, 
with four and a half corps 1 north of the river, also 
moving in a generally south-westerly direction, on 
a rough arc extending from Genappe, where the 
right of the army was in touch with von Kluck's 
left, by Gembloux to within a few miles of Namur, 
which the Seventh Reserve Corps was approaching. 
At the same time the most northerly corps of the 
Third German Army, the Twelfth Saxon Corps, was 

*It seems probable that at least half the Tenth Corps had 
been detained at Liege and had not come up. 



52 



The German March through Belgium 

marching through the Ardennes on Dinant. Thus, 
nine and a half German corps, covered by a large 
force of cavalry, were deployed on a front of seventy- 
five miles extending from Grammont on the right 
by Hal and Gembloux towards Dinant, ready to 
strike a concerted blow at the British Army and 
the French Fifth Army. On the morning of the 
21st three of the corps of this French Army were 
moving into their positions on the Sambre and the 
Meuse, in the expectation of being able to continue 
their forward march and with the help of the 
British Army to come down on the flank of such 
German forces as were believed to be marching 
through Belgium north of the Meuse; but the 
remaining corps of this army, the Eighteenth, was 
still on the march northwards from Avesnes, and 
was a long way off, as were several of the reserve 
divisions. The British Army of two corps was 
leaving its billets to the south of Maubeuge, where 
it had assembled in glorious August weather, the 
men rejoicing in the friendly welcome of the French 
peasants and in the comparative comfort of the 
French billets, which contrasted very favourably 
with the damp bivouacs of our own autumn 
manoeuvres, and marched forward towards Mons 
in complete and cheery ignorance of what fate had 
in store. 

Thus, almost before they had fired a shot the 
53 



Forty Days in 1914- 



French and British armies on the left flank were 
compromised. The enemy had already won the 
initiative, because he had carried through remorse- 
lessly and without material change a carefully- 
thought-out plan, and by combining great skill 
with complete lack of scruple had succeeded in 
shrouding in mystery both his strength and his 
intentions. The French Headquarters had been 
compelled by circumstances which they could not 
control to' change their plan at the last moment, 
and were not until a later date able to recover 
the loss of time this change involved. These first 
manoeuvres for position had brought into real and 
practical conflict the principles of the two opposing 
schools of military thought, which had, as I have 
described, for many years before the war been 
engaged in paper controversy. In accordance with 
their theory of war the Germans had developed 
from the outset, and in the shortest possible time, 
the maximum of force which was to go relentlessly 
forward until the decisive battle, the goal of the 
whole vast manoeuvre, had been fought and won. 
The numbers required to ensure that the decisive 
blow should have the necessary weight and strength 
had been obtained by a careful study of the char- 
acteristics of the enemy armies, and of the terrain 
upon which the opposing forces would first meet, 
by a bold acceptance of risk where no decision was 

54 



The German March through Belgium 

sought, and above all by surprise, the supreme 
weapon of generalship. 

The French theory of war aimed, as I have said, 
at keeping in hand a considerable reserve, or mass of 
manoeuvre, to be thrown into the conflict as occasion 
arose, either from the enemy's mistakes or from the 
success of other parts of the army. The enemy 
did make a mistake, and Joffre seized his oppor- 
tunity, but not until the Germans had gained such 
a commanding position as could not wholly be 
wrested from them. The French Commander-in- 
Chief had to abandon his first project of offence, 
extend his left northwards, strengthen it by moving 
troops from his extreme right, throw his reserve 
immediately into the line, and set about creating 
a fresh mass of manoeuvre. While all this was 
doing, the Germans were marching forward in 
agreement with their pre-arranged plan. The 
German General Staff had in effect out-manoeuvred 
the Allies in the first deployment by a combination 
of treachery and skill. 

On the critical left flank the Franco-British 
forces were coming into action piecemeal against 
an enemy not only in superior force but able to 
use his whole strength. 



55 



CHAPTER IV 

NAMUE, DINANT, AND THE SAMBRE 

The British Army and the French Fifth Army had 
assembled in the very area in which Napoleon had 
collected his forces for his last campaign: von 
Biilow's corps were marching to battle over the 
roads trodden, in 1815 by Bliicher's men; Conde, 
Turenne, William of Orange, Marlborough, Villars, 
and Wellington are amongst the great commanders 
who led their troops to war on these fields. The 
bridges over the Sambre, which the Fifth Army 
was guarding on the morning of August 21, 1914, 
had been forced by Napoleon's infantry, nearly 
one hundred years before, against the Prussians 
under Ziethen, and Wellington in Brussels hearing 
this news had sent out the orders which summoned 
the gallants of the British Army from the Duchess 
of Richmond's famous ball, and sent them march- 
ing to the field of Quatre Bras by the very routes 
taken by von Kluck's right columns. Quatre Bras 
and Ligny, where Napoleon overthrew Bliicher, lay 
in sight of de Lanrezac's outposts on the Sambre, 
and French troopers had passed over the field of 



Namur, Dinant, and the Sambre 

Ramillies some miles to the north-east. Mons had 
been held by Wellington's men at the outset of the 
campaign of 1815, and now a British Army once 
more entering Belgium had crossed the field of 
Malplaquet on its march to Mons. Before battle 
was joined British cavalry patrols had penetrated 
northwards almost to within sight of Waterloo, 
and German horsemen flanking von Kluck's march 
had passed through Audenarde. The armies were 
closing on each other in the very centre of the 
cock-pit of Europe. 

A great change had come over the face of the 
country since it had last seen British, French, and 
German troops locked in battle. 1 When Napoleon 
marched to the Sambre to open his last campaign 
he saw from the low hills which form the southern 
limit of the valley great stretches of open, rolling 
agricultural land, dotted with farming villages 
and woods, with here and there at the more im- 
portant river-crossings a small town enclosed within 
the narrow limits of strong ramparts ; a country 
of well-defined, broad-backed ridges and wide 
valleys watered by sluggish streams, a country in 
fact, abounding in the classic positions dear to 
the hearts of the writers of military text-books. 
The ground on which, in the third week of August 
1914, the German armies were deploying for battle 
1 The country here described is shown on Map II. 

57 



Forty Days in 1914 



retained much of its old character, but a great 
part of the French and British forces found them- 
selves taking up positions such as troops had never 
before been asked to hold in war, for the valley 
of the Sambre has been completely transformed 
by the industrial development of Southern Belgium. 
Around the little town of Charleroi now stretches 
north, east, and west a confusion of mines, blast- 
furnaces, and glassworks, connected by a network 
of cobbled streets and lanes, lined by close-packed, 
dull, uniform miners' cottages, between which 
rise tall chimneys, the headworks of mines, and 
great conical pyramids of smoking slack. Industry 
has added a new feature to the countryside in the 
form of a canal, which runs eastward, its waters 
black with slime and reeking of chemical refuse, 
from the Scheldt at Conde past Mons to a point 
a few miles north of Charleroi, where it dips 
sharply southwards to join the Sambre. West of 
the Charleroi Black Country, which extends almost 
without a break for twenty-six miles along the 
Sambre and the canal, the country resumes its 
open and agricultural character for a short interval 
beyond La Louviere and Binche. This disappears 
again, when Mons is reached, in another medley 
of mine-works, factories, and mining villages, 
ending still farther west along the Conde Canal 
in an intricate area of small market gardens inter- 

58 



Namur, Dinant, and the Sambre 

sected by innumerable dykes, which drain the 
country and have converted the marshes of the 
Scheldt into rich productive land. Altogether it 
was as unfavourable an area for defensive battle 
as could well be found, for the free movement of 
the defenders was much hampered by enclosures 
of all kinds natural to a great industrial district, 
and the scope of their artillery was limited by the 
masses of factories and buildings which on many 
parts of the battlefield obstructed the view to the 
front. Not the least of the difficulties of the Allies 
was that the teeming population of the district, 
ignorant of what was afoot or not knowing whether 
to fly, swarmed in the narrow streets, affording 
admirable cover for the enemy's spies, who were 
doubtless busy among them, while later these un- 
fortunates were to be driven helpless before the 
German attacking columns to shield them from 
the bullets of our men. 

Neither the British nor the French had marched 
to this curious battlefield intending to fight there 
defensively or, indeed, at all. Both armies had on 
arrival covered their front with outposts prepara- 
tory to a farther advance northwards, which would 
bring them clear of the mining districts. Battle 
was forced upon them by an enemy who had fore- 
stalled them in preparation and gained the initiative. 

The gradual wheel of the German forces 
59 



Forty Days in 1914 



through Belgium had on August 21 brought 
von Biilow nearer to the Allied forces than was 
von Kluck, and the Second German Army was 
consequently the first to become engaged. It 
will therefore be convenient to follow its opera- 
tions before turning to those of the First German 
Army. 

The pivot of the Allied position was Namur, 
a fortress covering the junction of the Meuse and 
the Sambre, designed on the same system of cupola 
forts as had been adopted for the defence of Liege. 
The experience of the attack on Liege had con- 
firmed the Germans in their views of the effect of 
l^eavy howitzer fire upon permanent works, and 
with this knowledge it was neither necessary nor 
desirable to repeat the infantry assaults which 
had cost them so heavily in their first attempts 
to rush the Belgian fortifications. The siege 
artillery from Liege accompanied the infantry of 
von Biilow's Seventh Reserve Corps in its advance 
towards Namur, and was reinforced by still more 
formidable weapons. Austria had before the war 
gone ahead even of Germany in the development 
of heavy siege howitzers, and she had succeeded 
in perfecting one with a calibre of 42 centimetres 
(16 in.). A battery of these monsters, hastily 
borrowed by Germany from her Ally, reached 

60 



Namur,, Dinantj and the Sambre 

Cologne on August 15, and came into action against 
the Namur forts on August 22. 

Meantime the German infantry had driven in 
the Belgian outposts and, without attempting 
further attack, took up entrenched positions cover- 
ing the artillery. The siege howitzers at once 
began to pound the forts, while the field howitzers 
and guns bombarded the infantry entrenchments, 
which, as at Liege, had been thrown up in the 
intervals between the permanent works. 

The garrison of Namur consisted of the Belgian 
fortress troops and the greater part of the Fourth 
Belgian Division, reinforced before the attack de- 
veloped by some detachments which had been 
driven in from Huy, and later by three battalions 
of French infantry, bringing the total strength to 
over 30,000 men. This time the Belgian infantry 
had no chance of using their rifles, and had to 
endure the nerve-racking and demoralising ex- 
perience of a prolonged and heavy bombardment 
to which no effective reply was possible; for the 
Belgian fortress guns were unable to discover the 
position of the enemy's howitzers, and the telephonic 
communication between the forts was very early 
destroyed, which made any systematic control of 
their fire impossible. This one-sided struggle did 
not last long. The forts were crushed in quick 
succession, and on the morning of the 23rd the 

61 



Forty Days in 1914 



German infantry advanced to the attack, entered 
the town, and cut off a considerable part of the 
garrison. This rapid reduction of the fortress of 
Namur was a great blow to the Allied plans. The 
resistance of Liege had encouraged the hope that 
Namur, with the immediate support of the French 
Army, would be able to resist at least long enough 
to allow of the completion of the Franco-British 
concentration on the Allied left flank, to be followed 
at once by an offensive movement against the 
advancing enemy. Details of the attack on Liege 
were, of course, not obtainable, and it was not 
appreciated how short the resistance of its forts 
had been when once the German siege howitzers 
had come into action. It was the fate of Namur 
which gave the quietus to the system of defending 
fortresses with immobile guns in heavily armoured 
works. 

While the final attack on Namur was in progress 
a fresh danger was developing against the right 
of the French Fifth Army. On the evening of 
the 2£nd the advanced guards of the Twelfth Corps 
of von Hausen's Third German Army reached the 
Meuse at, and on either side of, Dinant, fifteen 
miles to the south of Namur. The Germans began 
the attack on Dinant early on the 23rd, and after 
a sharp struggle got possession of the town and 
crossed the river. The French defenders here, 

62 



Namur, Dinant, and the Sambre 

the Fifty-first Reserve Division, had only arrived 
the evening before, and had relieved de Lanrezae's 
First Corps, which moved north to the battle-field 
of the Sambre, where it was badly needed. With 
Namur already in the enemy's hands, de Lanrezac 
could not neglect the fresh blow which threatened 
to cut his communications with the remaining 
French armies in the south, and he had no course 
but to order the First Corps back again to Dinant, 
where it arrived in time to carry out a brilliant 
counter-attack against the Twelfth Saxon Corps, 
the farther progress of which was thereby arrested 
for the time being. The Saxons had, however, as 
we shall see, played their part in forcing the 
withdrawal of a large French force at a critical 
moment from the battlefield in the north, and it 
is to this battlefield that we must now turn, leav- 
ing the Germans established on the Meuse by the 
evening of the 23rd at both Namur and Dinant. 

While the Seventh Reserve Corps were prepar- 
ing to attack Namur on the morning of the 21st, 
the remainder of von Billow's Army was advan- 
cing to the Sambre from the north, its centre 
being directed on Charleroi. His corps came into 
action in succession from left to right, the wheel 
having brought the inner or left flank nearer to 
the river. Thus the Guard Corps moving from 
Gembloux was the first to become engaged, and 

63 



Forty Days in 1914- 



after driving in the French outposts which were 

north of the river, discovered that the crossings 

between Ham and Tamines were held in strength. 

An attack on the bridges was begun soon after 

mid-day, and by 2.30 p.m. the German Guards had 

got across the river and were in possession of 

Auvelais, and soon after of Tamines. Here they 

were fiercely counter-attacked by the French, but, 

being constantly reinforced, not only held their 

own but were able to make farther progress towards 

dusk, and by 9.30 p.m. were in possession of the 

village of Arsimont, which lies two miles south 

of the river. Meanwhile on their right the Tenth 

Corps, 1 passing through Ligny, worked its way 

through the mining villages to the north of Charleroi, 

and beginning late in the afternoon an attack on 

the bridges to the east of the town, had by dusk 

established itself to the south of the river. Still 

farther to the west the Seventh Corps moving south 

from Genappe crossed the canal to the east of 

Courcelles, and its advanced guard came into 

contact with French cavalry (Sordet's corps), 

1 Being uncertain as to how much of the Tenth Active Corps 
took part in these battles and how much of this fighting was 
done by the Tenth Reserve Corps, I refer to the German troops 
on this part of the battle-front as the Tenth Corps, but it ap- 
pears probable that part at least of both corps were engaged. 
The Germans claim that von Bulow's Second Army was not 
complete at this period, as all his troops had not come up from 
Liege. 

m 



HshMi'es 




MAP 2. 

BATTLES OF THE SAMBRE, 

MONS AND LE CATEAU 




Namur, Dinantj and the Sambre 

which in the evening it pushed back to the main 
Charleroi — Mons road. Thus by dark on the 21st 
von Biilow had obtained possession of the cross- 
ings of the Sambre as far west as Charleroi, and 
was in a position to deploy for attack south of 
the river, against the French who were known to 
be in strength. 

This day had been one of preliminaries, the 
German advanced guards fighting their way for- 
ward against the French outposts, to gain room 
for the columns closing on the river from the 
north. Both sides had from time to time rein- 
forced their covering troops in the struggle to gain 
or hold some important passage across the river, 
but neither von Billow nor de Lanrezac had 
engaged their main bodies. Yet in these prelimin- 
aries the Germans had gained very real advantages, 
for though the French forces south of the Sambre 
were at least equal in numbers to those which von 
Billow was bringing to the attack, the German 
troops were so placed as to give them superiority at 
the outset. De Lanrezac was, in fact, compelled 
to accept battle at a time when he was preparing 
for an advance across the Sambre, to begin forty- 
eight hours later, and a considerable part of his 
army was still on the march to the battle-field. 
The Germans were already reaping the benefit of 
surprise, they had gained the initiative, thrown 

65 



Forty Days in 1914 



the Flrench on the defensive, and had their troops 
so placed that the whole could be used together 
in one concerted plan of attack. It was in these 
conditions that battle was joined in earnest next 
day. 

At dawn on the 22nd the troops of the Guard 
Corps south of the river were heavily attacked by 
the French, who regained possession of Arsimont, 
and fierce fighting ensued in this part of the valley 
of the Sambre, but as battery after battery of the 
Guard artillery came into action, and more infantry 
were pushed across the river, the Germans, despite 
very heavy losses, were able to force the French 
back by the close of the day to the main ridge 
overlooking the Sambre valley, between Fosse and 
Gougnies. Simultaneously with this struggle of the 
Guard Corps, the Tenth Corps were heavily 
engaged to the south of Charleroi, and gaining 
ground in spite of repeated French counter-attacks, 
which made their advance slow and costly, they 
had, ere the light failed, established themselves 
four miles to the south of the river, and were in 
line with the Guards on the right. The Seventh 
Corps, advancing west of Charleroi after a stiff 
fight at Anderlues in the evening, discovered French 
infantry holding the Sambre in force on either side 
of Thuin. This was the French Eighteenth Corps 
which had come up the evening before, but its 

66 



Namur, Dinant, and the Sombre 

two reserve divisions, which were to fill the gap 
between its left and the British Army, were still 
a day's march to the south. 

The 22nd had proved a hard but, on the whole, 
a successful day for the Germans. The battle was 
far from decided, but von Biilow had placed the 
whole of his corps on an east and west line, running 
about four miles south of Charleroi, had fought his 
way clear of the industrial districts, and now had 
beyond the river room and positions which would 
allow him to make full use of his superiority in 
artillery. 

General de Lanrezac's view of the situation on 
the evening of this day was : 

My opinion is that the enemy has not yet shown 
any numerical superiority, though he has perhaps con- 
siderable forces in the vicinity. The Fifth Army is 
shaken as the result of the battle, but is still intact. 
If it has suffered heavy losses it has also inflicted 
heavy losses on the enemy. Having now been with- 
drawn into more open country, where the artillery of 
the army, which is still intact, can act effectively, the 
army should be able to bring the Germans to a stand. 
Our troops, by defending every yard of ground, can 
gain time to reorganise, and will shortly be in a position 
to counter-attack. 1 

At the time when he wrote this General de 
Lanrezac's Eighteenth Corps had come up on his 
1 Hanotaux, vol. v. p. 289. 

67 



Forty Days in 1914 



left, and had hardly fired a shot, its two reserve 
divisions were still on the march to the front, 
while his First Corps had just been relieved on the 
Meuse, and was now available to take part in the 
battle. The brunt of the fighting had been borne 
by two of his corps only, the Tenth and Third, and 
these in his own words though shaken were intact. 
The British Army had just reached its positions 
about Mons, and was quite fresh. The strength 
neither of von Kluck's army now coming down 
on the Mons canal from the north, nor of Von 
Hausen's army about to debouch from the Ardennes 
against Dinant, was yet suspected by General de 
Lanrezac. Therefore, although the German suc- 
cesses gained on the 22nd were disquieting, there 
wais nothing in the information available as to 
the military situation to cause the Allies any real 
anxiety. 

The early hours of the 23rd were spent by von 
Plattenberg, the commander of the German Guards, 
in reorganising his corps after the severe fighting 
of' the day before, and preparing to attack the 
French, who were discovered to have fallen back 
during the night to a fresh position on either side 
of Mettet, five miles south of the Fosse ridge. 
His artillery had already started the prelimin- 
ary bombardment when he was informed of the 
advance of a large French force on his left flank, 

68 



Namur, Dinant, and the Sambre 

and he had to break off his preparations for attack 
to meet this new enemy. This was the First French 
Corps, which, as we know, had handed over the 
defence of the Meuse about Dinant to the Fifty- 
first Reserve Division, and now made its first 
appearance on the Sambre battle-field. Unfortu- 
nately at this time news arrived in quick succes- 
sion at General de Lanrezac's headquarters of 
the fall of Namur and of the capture of Dinant 
by the Twelfth Saxon Corps. The First Corps 
had to turn about at once and march back to the 
Meuse to save the right flank and communications 
of the French Fifth Army from the danger which 
threatened them. Had the French First Corps, 
which had not been engaged, been able to come 
down at this decisive moment on the flank of the 
German Guards, the result of the battle of the 
Sambre might have been very different; and with- 
out in any way reflecting on General de Lanrezac, 
who, in the circumstances was compelled to provide 
for the safety of his right and rear, one cannot but 
recall that ninety-nine years before, on a field of 
battle a few miles to the north, there occurred a 
somewhat similar incident which vitally affected 
the fate of a campaign. Then the French were 
attacking the Prussians at Ligny, and d'Erlon's 
corps, marching and counter-marching between 
the fields of Ligny and Quatre Bras, was lost to 

69 



Forty Days in 1914- 



Napoleon at a time when its aid might have allowed 
the Emperor to inflict on Bliicher such a defeat 
as would have made it impossible for the Prussians 
to appear at Waterloo. 

Von Plattenberg, relieved of any further 
anxieties as to his left, renewed his preparations 
for attack on the French positions about Mettet, 
which he carried before dark. To the south of 
Charleroi the Tenth Corps was engaged throughout 
the day in a fierce struggle with the French Third 
Corps about Malines, and had by dusk overcome 
its resistance and compelled it to retire on Wal- 
court, a village on the latitude of Maubeuge and 
eighteen miles to the east of the French fortress. 
Simultaneously the Seventh Corps attacked the 
French Eighteenth Corps on the front Gozee — 
Thuin — Lobbes, and after prolonged and fierce 
fighting carried all these places. The Eighteenth 
Corps, finding its right flank exposed by the retire- 
ment of the Third Corps, was in its turn compelled 
to fall back. At nightfall on the 23rd General de 
Lanrezac was then in the position that his front 
everywhere had been driven in, his flank was 
threatened by the fall of Namur and by the appear- 
ance of the German Third Army at Dinant, and 
he had received information that the British Army 
was being attacked by three German corps, while 
a fourth was working round its left flank. This 

70 



Namwr, Dinant, and the Sambre 

information was accompanied by an order to him 
to send off General Sordet's cavalry corps at once 
to the British left to prevent the threatened 
envelopment. In these circumstances General de 
Lanrezac ordered a general retirement, which took 
with it the two reserve divisions, the 53rd and 
69th, coming up on the British right. 

With this we may leave von Biilow's Second 
Army and the French Fifth Army opposed to it, 
and turn to von Kluck and the British Army, but 
it is important to remember, if the situation of 
the British Army at Mons is to be appreciated, 
that by the evening of the 21st, when the British 
were still on the march northwards, the Germans 
were already across the Sambre at and east of 
Charleroi; that by the morning of the 23rd, 
when the battle of Mons opened, they were estab- 
lished some seven miles to the south of Charleroi, 
and were therefore even then to the south of the 
British right flank; and that at dawn on the 24th, 
before we had begun to withdraw from Mons, the 
French Fifth Army had been for some twelve hours 
in retreat. 



71 



CHAPTER V 



MONS 



We left von Kluck's army on the forenoon of the 
21st marching' south-west from Brussels by the 
roads running through Grammont — Enghein — Hal 
and Braine l'Alleud, covered in front and on his 
right flank by three cavalry divisions. The day's 
marches were completed without incident, but 
early on the 22nd the British and German cavalry 
came into conflict, particularly to the north-east 
and east of Mons, and between La Louviere and 
Binche. The German cavalry now experienced 
the same difficulties as had confronted Sordet's 
horsemen in obtaining information as to what was 
going on behind the mounted screen, for the British 
horsemen, though not supported as were the 
German cavalry by armoured cars and infantry 
transported in lorries, had since the South African 
War been armed with the infantry rifle, and were 
easily first of the cavalries of Europe in dismounted 
work. The Uhlans got little beyond considerable 
losses from their morning's work, and it was not 
'See Map II. 

72 



Mons 

until late afternoon, when the British cavalry were 
withdrawn, that the Germans discovered that their 
enemy was in force at and to the west of Mons, 
and on a front running south-east from that town. 
The First and Second British Corps had by then 
arrived and taken up outpost positions, the line 
of the First Corps, under Sir Douglas Haig, extend- 
ing from near Peissant, about five miles west of the 
left of the French Eighteenth Corps which was near 
Lobbes, to Harmignies, four miles south-east of 
Mons ; that of the Second Corps, under Sir Horace 
Smith-Dorrien, running thence east of Mons to 
the canal at Obourg, and then westward along the 
canal to Pommeroeul. Here the line was extended 
next morning westwards to the Scheldt by the 
cavalry division, which had been moved during the 
evening from the right flank to the extreme left, 
where it arrived late at night. 

Von Kluck's Army had continued its march 
forward, still in a south-westerly direction, and 
on the evening of the 22nd appears to have 
been placed as follows: the Fourth and Ninth 
Cavalry Divisions were spread out along the 
British front, the Second Cavalry Division, which 
had sent patrols far to the west in the direction 
of Courtrai and Lille, had stronger bodies south- 
west and west of Ath about Peruwelz and Tournai: 
the left corps of the army, the Ninth, had halted 

73 



Forty Days in 1914 



on the road from Nivelles to La Louviere with its 
head near the canal: the Third Corps was along 
the main Brussels — Mons road, with its leading 
troops to the south of Soignies, while the Fourth 
Corps moving from Enghien, reached the Mons — Ath 
railway about halfway between those places. On 
the right the Second Corps was along the Lessines 
— Ath road, with its head just south of the latter 
place. 

Von Kluck's troops had come far and fast, the 
Second Corps on the outer flank of the sweep having 
marched 150 miles in eleven days, which for a body 
of troops of such a size is a remarkable achievement 
in the early days of a campaign, when boots and 
equipment are new, and reservists, fresh from civil 
life, are in the ranks. The British reservists had 
found the marches to Mons in the sultry August 
weather and their first acquaintance with the 
cobbled roads of Belgium trying, and the Germans 
must have had similar experiences, though not to 
the same extent, for they had a much smaller 
number of reservists in the ranks of their battalions 
than we had, and their men had for the most part 
been a shorter time away from active training. A 
Continental army in time of peace in the month of 
August has just completed the training of the 
year's batch of recruits, and then requires com- 
paratively few reservists to raise it to its war 

74 



Mons 

strength, which is one of the main reasons why 
the late summer has seen the outbreak of most 
Continental wars in recent history, and why this 
season has always been the danger period in times 
of European tension. The necessity for keeping 
up our foreign garrisons having long turned our 
Army at home into a feeder for the Army abroad, 
it was in consequence normally below strength, and 
contained a large number of young recruits, who, 
not being qualified either by age or training to 
take the field, had to be left at the depots on 
mobilisation. For these reasons the British in- 
fantry at Mons contained a far higher proportion 
of men returned from civil life than did von Kluck's 
army, 1 and the majority of them had completed 
their military training in the battalions abroad 
and did not know either their officers or non- 
commissioned officers. On the other hand, they 
were mostly men who had served for seven years 
as against the German infantryman's two, and the 
British infantryman had received, since the Boer 
War, more and better training in the use of the rifle 
than the foot-soldier of any other Army, a training 
which was to bear good fruit in the coming battle. 
When day broke on August 23 von Kluck had 
four active corps and three cavalry divisions of nine 

1 In most of our battalions at Mons the reservists numbered 
50 per cent of the total strength and in some cases 70 per cent. 

75 



Forty Days in 1914 



brigades, or about 160,000 men and 600 guns, 
within striking distance of the British force of two 
corps and five caivalry brigades, that is, about 
70,000 men and 300 guns, and his neighbour von 
Bulow had for two days been engaged successfully 
with the French Fifth Army, which had been pushed 
back some way south of the Sambre, between 
Namur and Charleroi. Doubtless, if von Kluck 
had known the British strength at this time he 
would not have acted as he did, but if our mobilisa- 
tion had been delayed (it did not in fact begin till 
four days after that of the French Army), once it 
was ordered the arrangements for the organisation, 
transshipment, and concentration in France of the 
British Expeditionary Force were carried out with 
remarkable secrecy and swiftness. Von Kluck 
may therefore have been in some doubt as to the 
strength, of the forces opposed to him, and he 
probably was in no less uncertaint}) - as to the 
position the British were holding, and more par^ 
ticularly how far their left flank extended. This 
knowledge was of special importance to him, for 
his task being to envelop the Allied left, he had to 
find out where that left was in order to get round 
it. As the British cavalry had been engaged with 
his troops to the east of Mons throughout the day, 
and did not reach their position on the left of the 
British line till long after dark, it is almost certain 

76 



Moris 

that the Germans must have been in ignorance of 
this movement until after their plans for the 23rd 
had been formed. Further, the German troops 
had been moving continuously since their fight on 
the Gette on August 18, and must therefore have 
been strung out in their marching columns for 
miles along the roads behind the places I have 
indicated as reached by the heads of the various 
corps. It would, in such circumstances, be a 
matter of time for von Kluck to close up his troops, 
deploy for battle, and deliver a concerted blow in 
overwhelming force against the enemy who appar- 
ently lay at his mercy. The Third Corps to the 
south of Soignies lay within five miles of the British 
outposts north of Mons, the Fourth Corps, on its 
right, was rather farther off, while the heads of 
the two flank corps, the Ninth on the left and the 
Second on the right, were between ten and twelve 
miles from the British positions. 

Von Biilow had, it will be remembered, begun 
his attack on the French Fifth Army by bringing 
his corps into battle in succession from left to 
right; but they were so placed before he began 
to fight that he was sure of being able to keep 
up a. steadily increasing pressure on his enemy. 
Von Kluck, on the other hand, had half his army 
at such a distance from the battle-field that it 
could hardly come into action before the evening 

77 



Forty Days in 1914 



of the 23rd, and yet without waiting to marshal 
his troops he flung those nearest his enemy into 
battle. Possibly he under-estimated the capa- 
bilities of the British force, for the German soldier 
had been wont to speak with contempt of our 
mercenaries, his favourite name for our Old Army, 
and our military reputation had not been enhanced 
by the story of the South African War, which was 
very imperfectly understood in the Fatherland; 
possibly he feared that we would run away from him 
at once, and was therefore anxious to come to grips 
at the earliest possible moment. Be that as it may, 
his only plan seems to have been to attack with his 
Third Corps, which was nearest to Mons, and to 
extend the battle front as soon as might be with 
the Fourth Corps, while the two flank corps con- 
tinued to march forward in the general direction 
they had followed hitherto. 

The early hours of the 23rd were spent in com- 
pleting the defective reconnaissances of the day 
before, and the German cavalry were busy tapping 
at the British outposts along the whole front. The 
battle opened in earnest about 10.30 a.m. with a 
bombardment of some batteries oj the Third Corps 
which came into action on a ridge to the north of 
Obourg, and from that time onwards the line of 
guns was gradually extended westwards as battery 
after battery, first of the Third Corps and then of 

78 



Mons 

the Fourth Corps, came into action, until by 1 p.m. 
the Germans had established a great superiority 
in artillery along the front of Sir Horace Smith- 
Dorrien's corps. Under the cover of this bom- 
bardment the infantry of the Third Corps began 
soon after 11 a.m. an attack in mass on the loop 
of the canal to the north of Mons. This was the 
first occasion in which the corps had met modern 
rifle-fire, for it had not been engaged either in the 
assault on Liege or with the Belgian Army on the 
Gette, and it came forward to within close range 
of our rifles in the column formations preceded by 
skirmishers, which had often been noted by British 
observers of the German manoeuvres, who, with 
memories of the South African War fresh in their 
minds, had speculated as to what would happen 
if such tactics were employed against us. Now 
the day had come, and as had been expected the 
dense columns of German infantry made an easy 
target for the rapid and accurate fire of the British 
riflemen, and our artillery, though impeded in 
finding positions on a great part of the front of our 
Second Corps by the mass of buildings and slag- 
heaps south of Mons, and overweighted by the 
numbers and power of the German guns, neverthe- 
less succeeded for the most part in supporting their 
infantry comrades effectually. It was, therefore, 
not until the Germans had crossed the canal to the 

79 



Forty Days in 1914 



east of Obourg, where it was not defended, and 
began, in conjunction with their troops to the north 
of the canal, a converging attack on Mons from the 
north and east, that the British were gradually 
pushed back on to and south-east of the town. 
The one complaint of our men was that they could 
not shoot fast enough to keep down the grey 
masses which surged against them, and yet they 
shot so fast that they could not touch the breeches 
of their rifles, and some of the German reports 
say that we had lined the canal with masses of 
machine-guns, a weapon with which we were 
peculiarly ill-provided. 

This attack of the Third Corps had been made 
chiefly against the British Third Division, whose 
commander, General Hubert Hamilton, had pre- 
pared a main position to the south of Mons con- 
necting with the left of Sir Douglas Haig's First 
Corps, near Harmignies, and it was to this position 
that the infantry defending the canal were with- 
drawn by order, fighting desperately hard to the 
east of Mons, where the German attack, unhampered 
by buildings and enclosures, was made in great 
strength, but not pressed to the immediate west of 
the town. The infantry of the Third Corps, taught 
by heavy losses to respect the British rifle fire, felt 
their way cautiously forward through the town of 
Mons, and the mining villages to the west of it, 

80 



Mom 

and did not come into touch with the main British 
position until dusk, when they contented them- 
selves with putting out outposts and restoring order 
after the losses and confusion of the day's fighting. 

Farther west along the canal the attacks of the 
extreme right of the Third Corps and of the- Fourth 
Corps, which had rather farther to go to reach the 
battle-field, developed somewhat later than the at- 
tack on Mons itself, and were, if anything, less 
successful, despite the great superiority of the 
German artillery. Less than half of the infantry 
of Sir Charles Ferguson's Fifth Division met these 
attacks, and was able to hold the general line of 
the canal until dusk, when it, like the Third Di- 
vision, was withdrawn to an entrenched position 
in rear. Still farther to the west Allenby's cavalry, 
supported later in the day by the 19th Infantry 
Brigade, 1 beat off all attempts to cross the canal 
without much difficulty. 

The Ninth German Corps, on von Kluck's left, 
seems to have made a leisurely march to the battle- 
field, and perhaps spent the day in closing up its 
columns preparatory to attacking the next day. 
In any event little more than its advanced guard 
became engaged partly with the right of the Third 
Division and partly with Sir Douglas Haig's First 

1 The 19th Infantry Brigade was made up from battalions 
sent out for duty on the lines of communication. 

81 



Forty Days in 1914 



Corps, which had a comparatively quiet day as far 
as fighting was concerned. 

This, then, is a bare outline of the events of the 
first day's fighting at Mons, and it is not easy to 
disentangle from, it any clear-cut German plan of 
battle. It seems that von Kluck, being unaware 
how far the British left extended, thought that 
his Fourth Corps by continuing its march south- 
westwards would overlap his enemy's flank, and 
on that understanding allowed his Third Corps 
to press in at once. Then finding himself com- 
mitted to a direct frontal attack, which was costing 
him very heavy losses, he appears later in the day 
to have ordered his Third and Fourth Corps to 
hold the British until he could bring his two outer 
corps down on their flanks and annihilate them. 
If this is the case his manoeuvre was slow and 
cumbrous, and he failed to take advantage of the 
chances open to him. Sir John French, as he 
says in his Mons despatch, had not expected to be 
attacked by more than one or, at the most, two 
corps, with perhaps one cavalry division, and it 
was not until 5 p.m. that he was aware of von 
Kluck's strength. 

Two of his divisions, Smith-Dorrien's Third and 
Fifth, had, in fact, been attacked throughout the 
day by two corps and two cavalry divisions, which 
had only succeeded in driving back the British from 

82 



Mons 

their outpost positions, at a cost quite dispropor- 
tionate to the losses of the defenders ; while two 
more German corps and a third cavalry division 
had been within reach of the battle-field, but had 
not taken any real part in the struggle. The Ninth 
Corps had, as we have seen, got into touch with the 
Third Division and with Sir Douglas Haig's First 
Corps, but had done nothing more; the Second 
Corps appears to have continued its march from 
Ath on the Valenciennes road, its advanced guard 
coming into action in the evening on the canal 
near Conde. Had von Kluck been able to press 
his attack on the evening of the 23rd the fate of 
the little British Army might have been very 
different. By then the right of our Third Division 
south-east of Mons was in a position of some dif- 
ficulty owing to the fact that the enemy had 
penetrated through the town, and the withdrawal 
of this division to its main position having taken 
place earlier than that of the Fifth Division, a gap 
was for some time left in the centre of Sir Horace 
Smith-Dorrien's corps, which gap was actually 
penetrated by small parties of Germans. It was 
closed soon after dark, but till then there had 
certainly been critical moments. 

Without more knowledge than we possess as 
yet of the state of von Kluck's corps on the 
evening of this first day of the battle of Mons, 

83 



Forty Days in 1914 



criticism of his action at that time can only be 
guess-work, but there can be but little doubt that, 
if the Third Corps had continued to advance south- 
east of Mons and had simultaneously exploited the 
gap between our Third and Fifth Divisions, while 
the Fourth Corps pressed the Fifth Division and 
the Ninth and Second Corps began attacks on the 
British flanks, ordered retreat would have become 
impossible. It may be that the Third and Fourth 
Corps had had such a bellyful of British musketry 
that they were incapable of further effort, and that 
the Second and Ninth Corps were wearied with 
marching, and so strung out along the roads as 
to make it impossible to bring them into battle; 
but from what happened next day it appears 
certain that a considerable part of the infantry of 
the Fourth Corps, as well as the whole or almost 
the whole of the Ninth and Second Corps, were 
not employed on the 23rd. It does not speak well 
for von Kluck's generalship if he approached us 
with his force so scattered that he could not make 
use of his strength and exhausted a part of his 
force before the remainder could become engaged, 
for both his cavalry and his aeroplanes must have 
given him timely notice of our presence. As to 
the effect of our rifle fire in the battle we have not 
only the evidence of our own men as to the heavy 
losses inflicted on the enemy, but a letter found on a 

84 



Moris 

German officer captured by the French, and printed 
by them, is very much to the point ; it runs : 

We have already left Belgium several days, after 
having fought and beaten the Belgians at Tirlemont, 
and the British at Mons. The principal tactics of the 
English consist in entrenching themselves in villages 
and in opening murderous rifle and machine-gun fire. 
So we only advance against them with artillery, and re- 
duce these wasps' nests with the fire of our guns. We 
have too heavy losses if we attack these positions with 
infantry, because our infantry marches like Bliicher. 

This letter was written about a week after the 
battle of Mons, and the change in the German 
tactics to which it refers almost certainly took 
place in consequence of the experiences of the 
German infantry on August 23. It is probable, 
as I have said, that von Kluck, finding that his 
first plan was producing a frontal attack in which 
his infantry was making little progress at very 
heavy cost, changed his plan during the course 
of the battle, and checking his Third and Fourth 
Corps in the afternoon decided to wait for the 
attack upon the flanks of the British by his two 
remaining corps, which had not then been engaged. 
The German general's action in this battle may be 
judged by his conduct later when he was faced by 
somewhat similar circumstances, and from this it 
appears that he was a man of one idea. He saw 

85 



Forty Days in 1914 



in envelopment the one road to victory, and this 
was but the first of a number of opportunities which 
he let slip because he could think of battle in no 
other way. 

Von Kluck had the extraordinary good fortune 
to bring to action an enemy very inferior in numbers 
and completely ignorant of the extent of this in- 
feriority, and it was an occasion for a bold and 
comprehensive plan. But he seems to have made 
the mistakes, first of attacking before he was 
ready and thereby failing to employ sufficient 
force at the outset to make complete success 
certain, and next of relying on the slow process 
of envelopment by troops at a distance from the 
enemy, at a time when it was a question of seizing 
a chance which might disappear. In the morning 
when he began the battle he struck with no con- 
siderable preponderance of strength; in the even- 
ing he had in immediate touch with Sir Horace 
Smith-Dorrien's two divisions more than sufficient 
force to overwhelm them, and it is to the undying 
glory of the infantry of the Old Army that by that 
time they had taken the sting out of such of the 
First Army as had attacked them, and had inspired 
the German commander with such respect that 
he was afraid to try for complete victory until the 
chance had slipped away. Up to 5 p.m. von Kluck 
had the advantage of surprise and was unable to 

86 



Mons 

make use of it. After 5 p.m. the surprise was gone 
and his hand was exposed, for by then Sir John 
French had received Joffre's message informing 
him of the strength of the German First Army, 
and of the retreat of the French Fifth Army. 

In vain is the net spread in the sight of any bird, 
and the British Commander-in-Chief, once aware of 
the trap, took steps to escape from it before it was 
sprung, and during the night issued orders for a 
retreat on Bavai to the west of Maubeuge. These 
orders came as a shock to the British troops, who 
had on the whole every reason to be satisfied with 
their day's work. They were quite unaware of 
the danger which threatened them or of the fate 
of the French Fifth Army, but they knew that 
the enemy had suffered terrible losses, that their 
main positions were intact, and that in their first 
battle with the world's most famous soldiers they 
had more than held their own. The First Corps 
had had some hard marching to reach the battle- 
field, followed by long spells of entrenching, but 
the bulk of its infantry had not fired a shot, and 
was dismayed at the idea of retreating without a 
fight. Of the Second Corps a part of the Third 
Division had been highly tried in the Mons salient, 
but the remainder had been nowhere hard pressed, 
while the cavalry, as the result of their first 
encounters with the enemy, were firmly convinced 

87 



Forty Days in 1914 



of their superiority, either on horseback or on foot. 
The Army was, in fact, ready and eager to renew 
the battle where it stood. A retreat is at any time 
a depressing experience, but it is doubly depressing 
to troops who, proudly conscious that they can 
beat the enemy on anything like fair terms, can 
see no reason for it in what has happened within 
their view, and are forced to surmise that something 
somewhere has gone wrong and that some vague 
danger is threatening from some unknown direction. 
By the time when the orders for retreat reached 
the British divisions the French Fifth Army was 
already a day's march to the rear of the British 
right. On the British left General d'Amade's force 
of French Territorials had been assembling since 
August 20 between the Scheldt and the sea, and 
on the 23rd his Eighty-fourth Division was at 
Valenciennes. This, the nearest force to us on 
this side, was therefore seven miles behind our left. 
Farther west the Eighty-second Division, lying 
between the Scarpe and Lille, came in contact 
on the 23rd with part of the Second German 
Cavalry Division, and its advanced troops were 
turned out of Tournai. The Eighty-first Division 
watched the frontier between Lille and Dunkirk, 
so as to prevent raiding parties of German cavalry 
and armoured cars from interrupting the British 
communications with the Channel ports, while 

88 



Moris 

d'Amade's last division, the Eighty-eighth, had 
just arrived at Arras. These troops were therefore 
very scattered; they had been hastily organised 
and were lacking in equipment, so that while they 
were able to confine the activities of the German 
cavalry, they were not yet in a position to oppose 
the advance of von Kluck's main bodies. Thus 
throughout the night of the 23rd-24th the British 
Army lay isolated in the presence of an enemy of 
more than twice its strength. 

Von Kluck's plan for the 24th appears to have 
been to hold the British centre to the south of 
Mons while his flank corps enveloped the British 
right and left, but his troops, after the experiences 
of the previous day, set cautiously to work, and 
the German infantry was in no mind to approach 
the British trenches until they had been well 
pounded by artillery. Sir Douglas Haig on the 
British right had had information on the previous 
evening of the retreat of the Fifth French Army, 
and, before the receipt of Sir John French's orders, 
had made all preparations for the withdrawal, 
which he saw to be inevitable. On receipt of these 
orders he was able to slip away early in the morn- 
ing before von Kluck's Ninth Corps had completed 
its preparations. 

On Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien's front, south 
and south-west of Mons, the German Third and 

89 



Forty Days in 1914- 



Fourth Corps opened a heavy bombardment soon 
after dawn, and followed this some two or three 
hours later with infantry attacks in mass, which 
were again met and mowed down by the British 
rifle fire; while somewhat later the Second German 
Corps and the German cavalry, working forward 
from the neighbourhood of Conde against the 
British cavalry division and the 19th Brigade on 
the extreme left, began to make themselves felt. 
This German envelopment should, to have been ef- 
fective, have taken place twelve hours earlier, 
for by the time it began the arrangements for the 
move back to Bavai had been completed, all the 
impedimenta had been sent back, and every one 
knew how and when to withdraw. The German 
blow was in great part delivered in the air, and 
though, as will be seen, the British cavalry and 
Fifth Division on the left did not escape scathless, 
the greater part of French's Army was withdrawn 
from the sweep of the avalanche which threatened 
to overwhelm it, without material loss to them- 
selves, leaving the battle-field strewn with the new 
field-grey uniforms which a few weeks before had 
been drawn from the mobilisation stores in Germany. 
The retreat from Mons had begun. 



90 



CHAPTER VI 



PURSUIT AND RETREAT 



Ten miles south of Mons lay the northern forts 
of Maubeuge. This was not a fortress of the value 
of Verdun or Toul, for the French Governments, 
slow to believe that even Germany would violate 
her own pledge by forcing a wa}' through Belgium, 
had never lavished on the defence of French 
Flanders anything approaching the sums which 
had been spent to safeguard the frontier where 
it marched with the German Reichsland. Still 
there had not been wanting thoughtful French 
soldiers who kept an anxious eye on the north- 
east, and plans for making the best of the defences 
of Maubeuge were ready when the storm burst. 
The first sounds of war heard by the British Army 
as it assembled to the south of the fortress were 
the constant explosions telling that General Fournier 
was busy clearing the woods and buildings which 
obstructed the fire from his works, and as we marched 
northwards and saw the well-dug trenches and 

1 For the operations up to and including the battle of Le 
Cateau see Map II.; for the retreat from Le Cateau see Map I. 

91 



Forty Days in 1914 



thick entanglements which formed an enceinte some 
twenty miles in extent connecting the permanent 
works, it seemed as if here was indeed something 
solid upon which we could in emergency rely for 
support. Fournier with a garrison of about 35,000 
Territorials and reserve troops barred the main 
roads leading southwards from Mons and the rail- 
ways both from Mons and Charleroi; Maubeuge 
therefore influenced immediately both the British 
retreat and the German pursuit. 

The northeastern forts of the place lay five 
miles south-west of Sir Douglas Haig's right, and 
the roads to the east of these forts were blocked 
by the retreat of the French Fifth Army; so the 
first movements of the British Army were perforce 
in a south-westerly direction. Von Kluck had 
evidently been ordered to continue to move in the 
same direction with his whole army and to leave 
Maubeuge to be dealt with by von Biilow, for we 
find him on the 24th setting all his columns in 
motion on lines taking them west of the fortress, 
which was invested by the Seventh Reserve Corps 
of the Second German Army, brought up with the 
siege artillery from Namur, and, as we know, the 
place fell on September 7 just at the time when 
the crises of the battles of the Ourcq and of the 
Marne were approaching. Von Kluck had, as we 
have seen, made his plans for a general attack for 

92 



Pursuit and Retreat 



the morning of the 24th on the front and flanks of 
the British Army, and it is a difficult matter to 
change plans quickly in the presence of an enemy. 
News dribbles back slowly from the fighting front 
to Headquarters, and orders are long in reaching 
troops once they are scattered over the battle-field, 
while the troops themselves, when they have once 
paid such a penalty for approaching rashly an 
occupied position, as had the Germans on the 23rd 
in their advance to the Mons Canal, are very 
cautious in drawing near to lines which they know 
to have been held, even long after they have been 
abandoned. Many times in this war withdrawals 
both by ourselves and the enemy have only been 
discovered after a surprising lapse of time. In 
this case the retirement of the British right flank 
was covered by Maubeuge, and the guns of the 
forts gave the Germans an added reason for caution. 
This probably accounts for the fact that neither 
the considerable force of cavalry which von Kluck 
had on his left, nor his Ninth Corps moving forward 
from Binche, interfered with the retreat of Sir 
Douglas Haig's corps, which at nightfall reached 
positions between Maubeuge and Bavai. Even 
our 5th Cavalry Brigade, which covered this move- 
ment, was hardly molested. Nor was the Third 
German Corps, after its morning repulse to the 
south of Mons, more successful in getting into 



Forty Days in 1914 



touch with the Third Division, which formed the 
right of Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien's Corps, but the 
Fourth and Second Corps, forming, with an ample 
force of cavalry, von Kluck's right, had a different 
story to tell. On this side the German plan seems 
to have been to use the Fourth Corps in pressing 
the front and flanks of Smith-Dorrien's Fifth Divi- 
sion, while the Fourth Cavalry Division, with the 
help of part of the Second Cavalry Division, at- 
tacked the British cavalry, and the Second Corps 
marched southwards from Conde to get well round 
the British left flank and encompass its destruction. 
In the area on both sides of the canal between 
St. Ghislain and Conde, von Kluck cannot have had, 
on the morning of the 24th, a superiority of less 
than four to one over the British, but he had 
waited too long to use his strength. It is a com- 
paratively simple problem to defeat an enemy who 
accepts battle in ignorance that he is opposed 
by overwhelming force; it is quite another matter 
to snatch victory from an enemy who has prepared 
his plans for retreat. Between dawn and dusk on 
this day there ensued between the southern limits 
of the mining villages and the Bavai — Valenciennes 
road a running and unequal fight, in which the 
masses of German infantry and cavalry, always 
working round the British left, were delayed and 
hampered in a series of desperate actions through- 

94 



Pursuit and Refreat 



out the long hot August day by the devotion 
of Allenby's and Ferguson's men. Some of the 
battalions of Ferguson's Fifth Division suffered 
heavily in actions as honourable to the British 
infantry as any in their long and glorious history, 
and the Germans picked up not a few prisoners; 
but the columns of von Kluck's Fourth Corps in 
their efforts either to break the resistance of the 
British, or to hold them until the Second Corps 
could come round and cut them off, again gave 
both our foot and artillery such targets as, in the 
words of one of our battery commanders, they 
had prayed they might see before they died, and 
the Germans could never find a chance of using 
effectively their weight of numbers. In fact, the 
bulk of the Fourth Corps suffered so heavily 
in the fighting in the morning amidst the mining 
villages, where it was attacking the main body of 
the Fifth Division in front, that it appears to have 
been too exhausted to continue the pursuit, and 
it was upon a flank guard of two battalions and 
a battery of our Fifth Division, aided by a brigade 
of Allenby's cavalry, during the remainder of the 
day that the brunt of the fighting fell, as the 
advance of that part of the Fourth Corps which 
was engaged in the turning movement, steadily 
reinforced by the Second Corps, became more 
and more menacing. Dramatic incidents were 

95 



Forty Days in 1914 



crowded into this series of Homeric combats, and 
must be left to the historian with all the records 
at his disposal to describe, but two at least may 
be mentioned as typical of the kind of fighting of 
this day. Both of them occurred near Audregnies, 
a name to be for ever famous in the history of the 
British Army. At the time when the flank attack 
of the German Fourth Corps had reached its full 
development a column of German infantry, almost 
certainly not less than a regiment of three battalions, 
was just debouching to attack, when "L" Battery, 
R.H.A., came into action behind a hedge 2000 
yards from them, and, almost unaided and under 
heavy and continuous fire from not less than four 
enemy batteries, kept them at bay for nearly three 
hours, finally withdrawing without the loss of a gun, 
when almost all its ammunition had been expended. 

The second incident is of a single company of 
the Cheshire Regiment, which by some mischance 
did not receive orders to retire, and with the aid 
of a machine-gun held up until dusk a second 
German column, also of about three battalions. 
When at last this little band of heroes was over- 
powered and captured, the Germans found only 
some forty unwounded men to stand up and hand 
over the arms which they had used until, in the 
words of one of them, they were weary of slaughter. 

Evening found the harassed British left flank, 
96 



Pursuit and Retreat 



shepherded by Allenby's cavalry, who this day 
taught the Germans what can be done by men who 
know bow to use the horse and rifle in combina- 
tion, safely in line with the remainder of French's 
Army on a front extending from La Longueville, 
through Bavai toward Jenlain, that is, along the 
main road from Maubeuge to Valenciennes. 

It will be remembered that the Eighty-fourth 
French Territorial Division was at Valenciennes. 
There it was attacked by a column of the 
Second German Corps, and, being without any 
means of replying effectively to the German field 
howitzers, it fell back in the direction of Cambrai; 
while patrols of the Second German Cavalry Divi- 
sion occupied Douai, the general line of defence 
of d'Amade's Territorials being thus drawn back 
to between Douai and Cambrai. On the right of 
the British Army the German Second Army had 
during the day forced General de Lanrezac back 
farther south, and in the evening his left corps, 
the Eighteenth, was near Solre-le-Chateau, twelve 
miles south-west of the British right; while the 
Fifty-third and Sixty-ninth Reserve Divisions had 
halted inside the circle of the forts of Maubeuge, 
but had orders to continue the retreat at dawn. 
General Sordet's cavalry corps, which was intended 
to assist in checking the threatened envelopment, 
had been unable to get across to our left flank 

97 



Forty Days in 1914 



owing to the congestion of the roads and to the 
exhaustion of his horses, so that, except for the 
friendly shelter of Maubeuge, the British Army 
still lay isolated and within cast of the net which 
von Kluck was spreading. 

Just as in the first day of the retreat the fortress 
of Maubeuge had influenced the movements both of 
Sir John French and of von Kluck, so now the great 
forest of Mormal, which lies to the south of the 
fortress, settled in great measure the direction of the 
marches of the second day. This forest, stretching 
for ten miles from north to south, with a width of 
about six miles, is traversed only by the roughest 
tracks, unsuitable for vehicles. Were the whole 
British Army to attempt to pass to the west of 
it there would be created a very dangerous gap 
between the British right and the French Fifth 
Army, while the British left would be pushed out 
into the very arms of the German columns which 
were seeking it. There were not sufficient roads for 
the whole Army to pass to the east of the forest, so 
it was divided, Sir Douglas Haig marching by the 
east on Landrecies, Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien mov- 
ing by the west on Le Cateau. From the prisoners 
captured on the 23rd and 24th — for parties of our 
men had been cut off and a considerable number 
of our wounded had of necessity been left in Mons 
and the neighbouring villages — von Kluck must by 

98 



Pursuit and Retreat 



now have been well informed of the strength of the 
British Army, and as von Biilow can hardly have 
failed to send him news of the continued retreat 
of the French Fifth Army, he should have ap- 
preciated that his chance of annihilating the little 
force which was falling back before him depended 
upon swift and energetic pursuit. Yet, though 
von Kluck had the whole of the Fourth and Ninth 
Cavalry Divisions and the greater part of the 
Second to follow up the retreating British, who 
moved off from their bivouacs about Bavai before 
dawn on the 25th, much of this mass of cavalry 
appears to have been employed in searching to the 
west for the Allied left flank, so that it might 
be enveloped when found, instead of being concen- 
trated upon the task which lay at hand. 

Some of the German cavalry became engaged 
with Allenby's men, very early in the day, to the 
south-east of Valenciennes, but made very slow 
progress against them in another running fight 
at long range, and were unable to get through 
to attack the flanks of Smith-Dorrien's infantry 
columns, which were marching to positions just off 
the Le Cateau — Cambrai road. Towards evening, 
however, the German horse, supported by some of 
their infantry, caught up and attacked an infantry 
rearguard of our Third Division holding a position 
just north of Solesmes. At that time the British 

99 



Forty Days in 1914 



cavalry was endeavouring to move south-eastwards 
towards Le Cateau, to fill the gap between the British 
First and Second Corps caused by the movement 
on either side of the Mormal Forest. The village of 
Solesmes, which lies in a hollow, was, just at the time 
when the German cavalry attack became threaten- 
ing, packed with the waggons of French refugees 
fleeing before the German advance, with the trans- 
port of the British cavalry, and with parties of 
French Territorials who had been cut off in the re- 
treat from Valenciennes. It was a chance of turning 
retreat into wild confusion such as has rarely fallen 
to cavalry, but the German horsemen, ignorant of 
what was going on behind the British front, and 
wearied with long days of marching, were in no 
mind to push an attack home late in the evening 
against infantry who showed a bold front. So 
the little British rearguard, composed of two 
battalions, the Wiltshires and South Lancashires, 
and a battery of artillery, stoutly holding its own 
till after dark, gained time for the congested roads 
to be cleared. It then fell back to its billets at Caw- 
dry, which it did not reach till midnight, having 
started its day's work at three o'clock that morning. 
The German cavalry appear to have gone off to find 
billets and water at nightfall, and made no further 
efforts to find out what the British were doing. 
Von Kluck's Third and Fourth Corps seem to 
100 



Pursuit and Retreat 



have spent the morning in reorganising after the 
confused fighting of the day before, and then to 
have continued their march south-west, the Fourth 
Corps by Le Quesnoy and Solesmes, the Third Corps 
moving some time after the Fourth by the road 
just west of the Mormal Forest. Between the right 
of the Fourth Corps and the Second Corps, which 
marched through Valenciennes towards Cambrai, 
now appears for the first time since the Germans 
marched south from Brussels an addition to von 
Kluck's Army in the shape of the Fourth Reserve 
Corps. Whether this corps had followed by road 
from Brussels or been brought up by train it is not 
yet possible to say, but it certainly fought next 
morning on the battle-field of Le Cateau, and it was 
marching with the First German Army on Au- 
gust 25. 

Eastward of the Mormal Forest von Kluck's 
Ninth Corps, which had not been seriously engaged 
since it met the Belgians on August 18, followed up 
Sir Douglas Haig's First Corps with more vigour, as 
its advanced guards at dusk attacked the British at 
Maroilles and Landrecies just as they were settling 
into their billets. Some stiff village fighting lasted 
well into the night, our 4th Guards Brigade in 
particular earning distinction at Landrecies, which 
the Germans attempted to enter after dark, under 
cover of the ruse of dressing the leading ranks in 

101 



Forty Days in 1914 



French uniforms and answering our challenges in 
French. Both attacks failed, but they had at least 
the effect of breaking the well-earned rest of our 
weary men. Had his troops everywhere dis- 
played the same energy, von Kluck might in a 
short time have completely exhausted the British 
troops, upon whom the tension of a retreat, the 
reasons for which they could not understand, days 
of fighting followed by long marches under a hot 
August sun, ending usually in a hard spell of 
entrenching, want of sleep, and the strain of 
constant readiness to meet some vague unknown 
danger, had begun to tell. Luckily for us the 
strain was not confined to one side, for though they 
had the incomparable moral fillip of success, 
of penetrating each day farther and farther into 
the enemy's country, of picking up broken-down 
stragglers and the debris of an army in retreat, yet 
physical weariness was affecting the German troops 
too. The supply arrangements were not working 
smoothly, for Maubeuge blocked the railways 
which might have fed von Kluck's army, and many 
of the bridges over the Mons Canal had been 
destroyed. It was therefore difficult for the supply 
columns to keep pace with the continuous advance, 
and many of the German troopers whom we 
captured complained that neither they nor their 
horses were properly fed; so on the night of 

102 



Pursuit and Retreat 



the 25th August two weary armies faced each 
other. 

It had been Sir John French's intention to con- 
tinue the retreat on the 26th with his whole 
army, and Sir Douglas Haig's First Corps did, in 
fact, march southwards in the direction of Guise 
in close touch with the two reserve divisions of 
the French Fifth Army, but late in the night of 
the 25th-26 Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien found 
that many of his troops had only just come in af- 
ter over twenty hours of continuous and heavy work, 
that the enemy were close along his front, and that 
it was out of the question to continue the retire- 
ment at dawn. He therefore issued orders to stand 
and fight on the ridge which runs just south of 
the Le Cateau — Cambrai road. 

Soon after daybreak on the 26th the leading men 
of a German advanced guard entered Le Cateau and 
discovered that the little town was full of British 
troops. In fact, in and around the place was the 
19th Infantry Brigade, and a great part of the 
British cavalry division was not far distant, both 
having come in from the left flank and settled 
down after dark in complete ignorance of their 
surroundings ; while some battalions of the British 
Fifth Division were also just outside the town. The 
confused fighting which followed was enough to 
supply the Germans with the information that the 

103 



"Forty Days in 1914 



British were in force, and were not retiring, for 
the German batteries which came into action drew 
an immediate response from British guns on the 
ridge south-west of the town. At an early hour 
the leading troops of the Fourth German Reserve 
Corps attacked Caudry, and found it held and the 
British entrenched and supported by artillery in 
position on either side of the place, while the Jagers 
and armoured cars of the German Cavalry Corps 
discovered that British infantry were in position 
between Caudry and Wambax. When these re- 
ports reached von Kluck his emotions must have 
been very similar to those of Napoleon on the morn- 
ing of June 18, 1815, when he found the British 
in position at Waterloo. The commander of the 
First Army would be aware that his Ninth Corps 
was in touch with Sir Douglas Haig's First Corps, 
which was falling back, and that there was a big 
gap between it and Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien's 
right, and his cavalry would have told him that 
Cambrai was held by a French force, but that 
there was an interval of several miles between that 
town and the British left, which had apparently 
been reinforced. After making all allowances for 
this reinforcement, it was out of the question that 
the British could oppose any but very inferior num- 
bers to the four corps and three cavalry divisions 
which he had within reach of the battle-field. Even 

104 



Pursuit and Retreat 



assuming, as is possible, that the whole of the 
Fourth Reserve Corps did not reach the battle- 
field on the 26th, he cannot have had less than 
130,000 men to oppose to Sir Horace Smith-Dor- 
rien's 55,000 and to some 4000 French in Cambrai, 
while his superiority in guns was not less than three 
and a half to one. His plan was a repetition of 
that which failed to mature at Mons on the 24th; 
that is to say, he proposed to make a frontal at- 
tack, mainly with his artillery, followed by envel- 
oping attacks on both flanks. The Fourth Corps 
and Fourth Reserve Corps were to make the at- 
tack on the British front from the west of Le Ca- 
teau towards Cattenieres. The Third Corps, of which 
the main body seems to have been at some distance 
from the field when the battle opened, and the Ninth 
Cavalry Division were to attack and envelop the 
British right. The column composed of the Second 
Corps and Second Cavalry Division were to work 
round the British left, while the remainder of the 
Second Corps moved on Cambrai. 

Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien had the greater part 
of Allenby's cavalry on his right between Le Ca- 
teau and the Sambre, then came the Fifth Divi- 
sion, which, after its hard day on the 24th, had 
crossed the line of march of the Third Division and 
moved to the inner flank, and now held the front 
from the southern outskirts of Le Cateau to Trois- 

105 



Forty Days in 1914 



villes, with the 19th Brigade in support. The 
Third Division held the centre as far as Cau- 
dry, and on the left lay the Fourth Division, which 
had just arrived, not quite complete, from Eng- 
land, and had moved forward north of the Le 
Cateau — Cambrai road the day before to protect 
the retirement of the Second Corps. The artillery 
and one of the infantry brigades of the division had 
moved back at dusk to the south of the Warnelle 
Brook, expecting to continue the retirement, but the 
remaining two brigades only arrived at a very late 
hour at Beauvois and Haucourt, where they still 
were at dawn on the 26th. The 4th Cavalry Brigade 
took position to the left rear of the Fourth Division 
and watched the flank. 

Just as on the right the battle opened at an early 
hour with some indiscriminate fighting about Le 
Cateau, so that part of the infantry of the Fourth 
Division which was about Beauvois and Haucourt 
came into collision soon after 4 a.m. with German 
cavalry and the Fourth Reserve Corps advancing 
through and on either side of Cattenieres. The inten- 
tion was that the Fourth Division should take up its 
battle position with its right flank near Caudry and 
its front along the north bank of the ravine formed 
by the Warnelle Brook towards Esnes. Before they 
could establish themselves on this line the two 
infantry brigades, which could not at first be sup- 

106 



Pursuit and Retreat 



ported by artillery, as the guns were moving to 
their posts along the Warnelle, became involved in 
an unequal fight with German cavalry and infantry 
in greatly superior numbers supported by a strong 
force of artillery. Our men fell back slowly, and 
the front of battle was formed roughly along the 
Warnelle Brook between 8 and 9 a.m. The Fourth 
Reserve Corps, which had not fought at Mons and 
was perhaps less cautious for that reason than its 
neighbour, had probably started in the morning 
expecting to follow up an enemy in full retreat, 
an expectation which would be confirmed by the 
withdrawal of the first British infantry they had 
met. Its somewhat premature advance was brought 
rudely to a standstill by the steady rifle fire of the 
British infantry and the accurate bursts of shrapnel 
from our guns. 

These events must all be regarded as prelimin- 
aries, for von Kluck's orders for battle can hardly 
have reached his troops at the time when they took 
place, since he would not have been aware, until 
the first reports from his advanced troops came 
back to him, that the British meant to stand and 
fight. Certainly, judging from his subsequent pro- 
cedure, an attempt to rush positions held by British 
infantry formed no part of his plans. His 
method of attack was in fact exactly that de- 
scribed by the German officer whose letter I 

107 



Forty Days in 1914 



have quoted in the last chapter — to reduce the 
wasps' nests by the fire of the guns. The battle 
proper opened with a heavy bombardment, which 
steadily developed in intensity as the artillery of 
his four corps came into action. A series of villages 
formed supporting points either on or close behind 
the British front, and Troisvilles, Audencourt, 
Caudry, Ligny, Haucort, and Esnes, all standing 
prominently along the ridges which formed the 
main position, each with a church spire rising 
from its centre, made fine targets for the German 
howitzers. We had not then learned that while a 
village can be turned into a small fortress if there 
is ample time, material, and labour to prepare it 
for defence, it is a trap when exposed, without such 
systematic preparation, to the pounding of high ex- 
plosive shell. The supports, the headquarters of 
battalions and brigades, and the collecting stations 
for the wounded which had been established in the 
churches and more solid buildings, were all sooner 
or later forced to leave by the constant rain of 
projectiles. 

Our own artillery, though inferior in numbers 
and in weight of metal, found itself much more fa- 
vourably placed than at Mons, and attempts by the 
German infantry to come forward and test the 
strength of our entrenchments repeatedly withered 
away under our searching and accurate shrapnel fire. 

108 



Pursuit and Retreat 



Only on the right flank was part of the artillery of 
the Fifth Division unable to find covered positions, 
and there the gunners, shelled simultaneously from 
the north and the east, suffered heavily, but though 
a number of their guns were damaged and the enemy 
seeing them in the open could concentrate upon them 
an apparently overwhelming fire, yet to the very last 
such guns as remained serviceable were kept in ac- 
tion. For the most part, however, both the enemy's 
artillery and our own devoted their attention to 
the infantry, the Germans trying to drive our men 
from their entrenchments by weight of shell and 
our artillery seeking to prevent the development of 
an infantry attack. 

After the check administered by our Fourth 
Division to the German Fourth Reserve Corps on 
the left, the enemy's infantry, except at two points, 
made few attempts to press in, but waited, enduring 
our shelling and watching the effect of their own. 
These two points were the extreme right flank near 
Le Cateau and the village of Caudry. Near Le 
Cateau the ground was more broken than elsewhere 
on our front, and the German infantry, covered by 
the fire of their guns, established in great numbers 
in a semicircle round our flank, were able to work 
forward and keep up a constant fire, mainly from 
machine-guns, throughout the forenoon upon the 
infantry of the Fifth Division, which had to stand 

109 



Forty Days in 1914 



a heavy and continuous shelling, and could not 
receive the same support from their artillery as 
was given by our guns more comfortably estab- 
lished on other parts of the line of battle. Thus 
it happened that the Fifth Division, which had 
been moved to the inner flank, that it might be less 
exposed after the severe trial it had endured in the 
withdrawal from Mons, had again by the fortune of 
war to bear the brunt of this day's fighting. By a 
curious mischance the other point of danger, the 
village of Caudry, was also held by troops which 
had been sorely tried. Its garrison was found by 
the 7th Infantry Brigade, which had formed the 
rearguard of the Third Division on the previous day, 
and having been engaged in a stiff fight until well 
after dark near Solesmes, a great part of the Bri- 
gade had only reached Caudry at a very late hour 
and in a state of exhaustion. 

As alrealdy described, the first troops of the 
Fourth German Corps struck the village at an early 
hour, before there had been time to establish a com- 
plete defence, and some of the German infantry suc- 
ceeded in entering the place. When a little later our 
Fourth Division drew back to its battle-line along 
the Warnelle, Caudry was left a salient jutting out 
like a bastion from the angle of the British front, 
and became a target such as the German loves. 
Just as at the opening of the battle of the Sambre 

110 



Pursuit and Retreat 



the enemy's first blow fell on Namur at the angle 
of the Allied line, and on the 23rd he first pressed 
against the salient to the north of Mons, so now 
he followed up the early efforts of his advanced 
guard with repeated attempts to get hold of Caudry, 
and kept up against it throughout the forenoon 
constant infantry attacks varied by spells of heavy 
shelling. It was the German guns which drove 
the British out of the village about noon, but a 
counter-attack at once regained a part of it, and 
the enemy's infantry were prevented from making 
any substantial progress. 

At 1 p.m. the British front, which had for seven 
hours been in contact with forces in greatly superior 
numbers, was still everywhere intact, and Sir 
Horace Smith-Dorrien's courage in accepting bat- 
tle had been justified; but he knew that his right 
would become more and more exposed by the re- 
tirement of the First Corps, and that columns of 
German troops, which in the morning had been at 
some distance from the battle-field, were still con- 
verging on his men. He was also aware that it 
would take time to get the heavier impedimenta out 
of the way, and for the orders to retire to reach 
his troops, so that when they began to move back 
the afternoon would be well advanced and darkness 
would before long cover the retreat. He therefore 
decided that, as the stubborn resistance which had 

111 



Forty Days in 1914 



everywhere been offered to the enemy afforded a 
chance of withdrawal, and any chance of plucking 
his men from the danger of envelopment which hung 
over them must be seized, the orders to fall back 
should go out. 

This decision was no less bold than that of the 
previous night to stand and fight. The orders for 
the retreat from Mons had been prepared before 
dawn on August 24, and had reached the troops ere 
they had become engaged on that day, so that 
the army generally knew beforehand what to do 
and how to do it, but a withdrawal in broad day- 
light, when the battle was at its height, and the 
troops in close touch along the whole front with 
an enemy who had in position an overwhelming 
preponderance of guns belching high explosive shell 
and shrapnel, was an operation which most soldiers 
before the war would have regarded as involving 
complete and irremediable disaster. Yet it was very 
nearly accomplished with entire success, of which 
it just failed because the left of the Fourth Ger- 
man Corps, apparently considering that even Brit- 
ish infantry would be unable to stand the pound- 
ing of its guns from front and flank, and assured 
of the support of the main bodies of the Third Corps, 
which by now had reached Le Cateau and was ready 
to fall on our right flank, began an assault upon 
the war-worn Fifth Division before the orders for 

112 



Pursuit and Retreat 



retreat had been fully circulated. This to some ex- 
tent precipitated the retirement, which, as far as 
concerns the extreme British right, the Germans 
might claim was not voluntary. But the Fourth 
Corps did not realise its success, or it was slow in 
communicating the news to the remaining German 
Corps, for these did not begin to press in. The 
withdrawal of most of the British infantry was cov- 
ered with great skill and devotion by the artillery, 
and was effected with astonishingly little loss af- 
ter the trenches had been evacuated, a result to 
which another and unforeseen cause largely con- 
tributed. I have mentioned that the retreat be- 
gan before orders could reach all the troops. The 
consequence of this was that at a number of points 
along the front parties of our infantry, varying 
in size from several companies to quite small de- 
tachments, remained in the front trenches in ig- 
norance that their comrades had withdrawn. Most 
of these were eventually captured by the enemy 
and spent long years in German prisons, but it 
must be some consolation to them to know that 
by holding on as they did to the last they com- 
pletely deceived the enemy as to what was going 
on and prevented an immediate pursuit of their 
comrades. In no other way is it possible to ac- 
count for the inaction of the enemy, who was seen 
to be still bombarding our front trenches to the 

113 



Forty Days in 1914 



east of Caudry at a time when the main bodies of 
our infantry, rapidly re-formed after the first dis- 
order of the withdrawal, were crossing the ridge 
near Elincourt, six miles to the south. 

Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien marched his columns 
partly through St. Quentin, and partly by roads 
to the west of that town, straight for the Somme, 
at and near Ham, and had got his whole force safely 
across the river at an early hour on the 28th. The 
cavalry covered their retreat with great skill, and 
only occasionally were parties of German cavalry 
able to come in contact with the infantry columns, 
which beat them off without difficulty. None the 
less for infantry which had taken part in a long 
day's fighting and endured hours of shelling from 
the enemy's massed batteries it was an exhausting 
effort. All the columns marched day and night, 
relieved only by brief halts, which gave little oppor- 
tunity for sleep, some covering in thirty-eight hours 
as much as forty miles, in many cases without food. 

IWtune had a second time presented von Kluck 
with the chance of inflicting an annihilating defeat 
upon the British Army, and a second time he had 
failed to take the chance when it came. Obsessed 
as he was with the idea that by a wide envelopment 
alone could decisive success be won, the detours 
of his flanking columns brought them too late to 
the battle-field, and this, combined with the respect 

114 



Pursuit and Retreat 



for British rifle fire and British shrapnel with 
which his infantry was imbued, and with the 
cool leadership of Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien, 
enabled our Second Corps to escape from what, 
on the morning of the 26th, appeared to be certain 
destruction. 

Had von Kluck been a great commander he 
would, as soon as he had discovered that the British 
had been forced to accept battle in greatly inferior 
numbers, have prepared not only for success on 
the battle-field, but for such a pursuit as would 
have converted retreat into rout. For this he had 
an ample force of cavalry at hand, and it should 
have been carefully rested, watered, and fed, while 
the infantry and artillery were employed in driving 
the British from their positions, in order that it 
might be ready to follow up retirement promptly 
and energetically. An attack by a fresh cavalry 
division upon our weary and exhausted Fifth 
Division on the afternoon of the 26th might have 
been decisive in its effect. Certainly cavalry is 
never likely to obtain a more favourable oppor- 
tunity than was presented at that time, but the 
German cavalry never appeared at all. They had 
been wearied by employment throughout the day 
on enterprises which had no influence on the result 
of the battle, and in the evening were seeking food 
and water when they should have been pressing 

115 



Forty Days in 1914 



hard upon our men. Pursuit cannot be improvised, 
for the limits of human endurance are reached even 
by those who have taken part in a victorious battle ; 
it must therefore be prepared beforehand, and 
this von Kluck, though time and means were avail- 
able, neglected, for he was thinking of other things. 

The battle of Le Cateau was the last impor- 
tant engagement of the retreat from Mons, which 
was not again seriously molested. The Germans 
entirely failed to appreciate either the opportuni- 
ties which it presented or its results, and, as will 
be seen, this misconception led to vital change in 
their plans ; but before coming to that change the 
story of the events on either side of the battle-field 
must be completed. 

First, as to the left flank: the French troops 
which have been mentioned as holding Cambrai on 
the 26th August consisted of part of the Sixty-first 
Reserve Division. This division and another reserve 
division had been detached from the garrison of 
Paris, and had just joined General d'Amade. These 
troops had been attacked during the battle of Le 
Cateau by the main body of the German Second 
Corps and had fallen back on Bapaume, whence 
they had marched to Peronne in touch with General 
Sordet's cavalry corps. The French cavalry had at 
length been able to cross the roads congested by the 
retreating columns of the French Fifth Army and of 

116 



Pursuit and Retreat 



the British Army, and on the 26th were to the south 
of Cambrai. On the 28th, that is, on the day on 
which the British Second Corps crossed the Somme 
at Havre, Sordet's cavalry and the two reserve 
divisions were attacked on the Somme near Peronne, 
and again compelled to fall back, the reserve divi- 
sions retiring on Amiens, followed by the enemy. , 
Meanwhile a much more important development 
had taken place just to the south. General Manoury 
had arrived at Montdidier, and following him from 
the Alsace front came the Seventh French Corps, 
part of which had already detrained. Manoury had 
been ordered by Joffre to form and take command 
of a Sixth French Army, consisting of this Seventh 
Corps and of other troops to be sent north from 
Alsace, of Sordet's cavalry corps, very much 
reduced by the exhaustion of its horses, and of 
d'Amade's two reserve divisions. Thus a force 
which was destined to play a great part in the 
campaign was gradually forming to meet von 
Kluck's envelopment and to cover the threatened 
British left. It was the beginning of the forma- 
tion of a new mass of manoeuvre to take the place 
of Joffre's original reserve, the Fourth Army, which 
was heavily engaged in the Ardennes. As we shall 
see, this Sixth Army was steadily increased during 
the next few days, while yet another army, the 
Ninth, under the command of General Foch, was 

117 



Forty Days in 1914 



being formed behind the French centre by the with- 
drawal of corps from other armies. Thus Joffre's 
measures for seizing the opportunity, which was 
to present itself before very long, were taking 
definite shape. 

On (Smith-Dorrien's right Sir Douglas Haig's 
First Corps had retired on the 26th due south from 
Landrecies, where it had been engaged during the 
previous night with von Kluck's Ninth Corps; but 
the First German Army, for reasons which will 
appear, seems to have been ordered to continue 
to move south-westwards. Accordingly on the 
27th, while the Second British Corps was retiring 
from Le Cateau, the Ninth Corps turned off 
from following up Sir Douglas Haig, and moved 
in the direction of St. Quentin, leaving our 
First Corps to the tender mercies of the Guard 
Cavalry Division and the Seventh Corps of von 
Billow's Second Army. Troops of these forma- 
tions engaged a rearguard of the First British 
Division, and succeeded in isolating a battalion 
of the Munster Fusiliers, which, after a desperate 
and gallant fight against very long odds, was 
surrounded near Etreux, where the Landrecies — 
Guise road crosses the Sambre, and lost more than 
three-quarters of its effectives, the remnant being 
rescued by the plucky intervention of a squadron 
of the 15th Hussars. The noble stand of this 

118 



Pursuit and Retreat 



unfortunate battalion enabled the remainder of 
the corps to complete its march without difficulty. 
The 28th was chiefly remarkable for the first 
real attempts of the German horse, chiefly of their 
Second Army, to follow up the British retreat in 
force, attempts which were checked by our cavalry, 
who again showed themselves to be the better 
men whether in mounted attack (the 12th Lancers 
had this day the satisfaction of getting home with 
the lance) or in dismounted action, and, thanks 
to this friendly screen, the weary infantry com- 
pleted their marches without molestation. On this 
evening the First Corps lay between the Gobain 
Forest and the Oise to the south of La Fere, the 
Second Corps to the north of the Oise about Noyon, 
both corps being covered by the cavalry. 



119 



CHAPTER VII 

VON EXUCK CHANGES DIRECTION * 

The British Army owed its immunity from pursuit 
after the battle of Le Cateau to a variety of cir- 
cumstances, chief amongst which were von Kluck's 
failure to appreciate the results of the battle, and 
the effect of this failure upon von Moltke at 
German Headquarters. The German official reports 
of this period give the impression that the British 
Army had been completely defeated and was in 
disorderly retreat. Now it is notorious that official 
reports are frequently highly coloured, for other 
than military reasons, and that they do not neces- 
sarily represent the real opinions of the military 
authorities by whom they are prepared and issued; 
but when the actions of these authorities accord 
with the general tenor of their reports it is fair to 
assume that the latter reflect their real views. The 
German official report of August 27 ran as follows : 

Nine days after its concentration the German Army 
has advanced victoriously into French territory from 
Cambrai to the southern Vosges. The enemy has been 

1 For von Kluck's marches see Map I, 

120 



Von Kluck Changes Direction 

beaten on the whole front, and is in full retreat. In 
view of the enormous extent of the field of battle, which 
runs through wooded and in some parts mountainous 
country, it is not possible to give exact figures as to 
the enemy's losses in killed and wounded, nor of the 
number of colours captured. 

The army of General von Kluck has driven back 
the British Army near Maubeuge; and by means of a 
turning movement attacked again on August 27 to 
the south-west of Maubeuge. The armies of General 
von Biilow and von Hausen have completely defeated 
about eight French and Belgian army corps between 
the Sambre, Namur, and the Meuse. These battles 
lasted several days. Our armies are pursuing the 
enemy to the west of Maubeuge, and Namur has fallen 
into our hands, after two days' bombardment. We 
are now attacking Maubeuge. 

It will be noticed that this report exaggerates 
the strength of General de Lanrezac's Army, which 
is said to consist of 8 French and Belgian corps, 
whereas we know that there was only 1 Belgian 
division in Namur, and the French Fifth Army 
consisted of 4* corps, with 5 attached divisions. 
This exaggeration is perhaps excusable, but it is 
not easy to understand why the date of the battle 
of Le Cateau is given as August 27. Further 
particulars as to this battle followed soon after- 
wards. The next reports said: 

The English Army, to which three French territorial 
divisions were attached, has been completely defeated 

in 



Forty Days in 1914- 



to the north of St. Quentin ; it is in full retreat through 
St. Quentin. Several thousand prisoners, seven batteries 
of field and one battery of heavy artillery have fallen 
into our hands. 

To the south of Mezieres our troops, fighting their 
way forward continuously, have crossed the Meuse on 
a wide front. Our left wing, after nine days' fighting 
in the mountains, has driven back the French Alpine 
troops to the east of Epinal. Our cavalry is advan- 
cing victoriously. 

This was followed by two semi-official reports 
from German Headquarters. The first, dated 
August 29, runs : 

The latest defeat of the English near St. Quentin 
has been brought about by the fact that our masses 
of cavalry, pursuing the English in their retreat to- 
wards St. Quentin, forced them to stand, and thereby 
enabled our army corps to intervene a second time 
in a decisive manner. The defeat of the English is 
complete. They are now completely cut off from 
their communications, and can no longer escape by the 
ports at which they disembarked. 

The second semi-official report, dated the 31st, 
says: 

The English Army is retiring on Paris in the most 
complete disorder, and its losses are estimated at 
20,000 men. 

All this information, which, was sent off from 
the German Headquarters at Coblenz, must have 

122 



Von Kluck Changes Direction 

come from von Kluck, and it is evident that he 
believed that he had inflicted an annihilating 
defeat upon Sir John French's Army. No doubt 
the reports sent back to him by his troops of the 
condition of our lines at Le Cateau, after we had 
abandoned them, encouraged him to believe that 
we had fled in great disorder. As Sir Horace 
Smith-Dorrien had, until a late hour of the 25th, 
intended to continue the retreat, and the orders 
to stand and fight did not reach all his troops 
until the early hours of the 26th, there had not been 
time to send back much of the light transport 
needed with the troops on the march, and this 
having been drawn up in and around the villages 
on our battle-front, had been smashed up by the 
enemy's artillery fire, the debris being scattered 
over the battle-field. A considerable number of 
guns had suffered the same fate and had to be 
left behind when we withdrew, while many 
exhausted stragglers, who had lost their way 
in the withdrawal, had fallen into the enemy's 
hands. Further, in the early days of the retreat, 
When we were marching day and night without 
regular halts, and when all the transport had 
been sent back as far and as quickly as possible, 
the troops could not be supplied with food by 
the ordinary methods of distribution, so Sir 
William Robertson, the Quartermaster-General, had 

123 



Forty Days in 1914 



adopted the expedient of dumping alongside the 
roads by which we were retreating, sides of beef, 
flitches of bacon, piles of cheese, and cases of 
biscuit, so that the troops might help themselves 
as they passed. In distributing the supplies in 
this way the lorries of the Army Service Corps 
were sent right forward, and on more than one 
occasion came into contact with the enemy's 
cavalry. A portion of a supply column being cut 
off by a party of German horse, and the officer in 
charge summoned to surrender, his answer was to 
put on full speed and burst, like Norman Ramsay's 
guns, through the enemy's ranks, a glorious baptism 
of fire for our modern transport. 

Much of the food deposited in this way had to 
be left where it was placed, sometimes because it 
was not found in the darkness, sometimes for lack 
of time to use it or of means to carry it away, and 
this, combined with the inevitable litter of packs 
and greatcoats abandoned by exhausted men, no 
doubt presented to the enemy a picture of disorder 
and rout which, as he took no steps to investigate 
the facts, he did not realise was not a fair repre- 
sentation of the state of our army. 

The news spread among the German troops of a 
succession of overwhelming victories had raised them 
to a high pitch of excitement . and jubilation, and 
disposed them to exaggerate grossly indications of 

124 



Von Kluck Changes Direction 

disaster and disorder in the ranks of their enemy. 
They had been taught to expect a rapid and com- 
plete victory over the French, and they were 
persuaded that the intervention of Belgium and 
Britain had been of no effect in staying the 
triumphant progress of their arms. I was in 
Germany at the time of the Agadir incident, when 
war with France seemed very near, and the Prussian 
regimental officers were then openly boasting that 
the campaign would be for them a military parade ; 
and now that the great war for which they had 
been ardently longing for years had come, they 
were, it appears, convinced by their first successes 
that the military parade had come too. It seems 
all but incredible, now that four years of terrible 
experience has taught the world the meaning of 
modern war, that any men who had devoted their 
lives to its study could have desired to bring about 
such a calamity, but there is no question that this 
is so. The German military system had raised the 
corps of officers to the position of an autocracy, 
but had failed to provide them with the means of 
maintaining the exalted role they were asked to 
play in the national life. The great majority were 
very poor, and they saw around them the com- 
mercial and manufacturing classes steadily growing 
in wealth and setting a standard of living with 
which they could not compete. Promotion was 

125 



Forty Days in 1914 



slow, the work hard and monotonous, and dis- 
content with their straitened circumstances was 
rife. A very large number of German officers 
made no attempt to conceal their longing for a war, 
which they were certain would be a German 
triumph, and in moments of expansion spoke of 
the loot to be had in rich France. This being so, 
it is not surprising that the events of August 1914 
appeared to them to be the realisation of their 
fondest hopes, and produced an intoxication which 
bemused their military judgement. 

Here are two extracts from the diaries of two 
German officers of von Kluck's Army bearing on 
this period; the first is as follows: 

August 23. — We receive news that we have gained 
a great victory near Metz. 

24. — We hear that the British cavalry has been anni- 
hilated, and that six English divisions have been exter- 
minated as they were detraining. 

25. — A telegram from the Emperor, expressing his 
delight at the fabulous marches of the Second Corps, 
has been made known. We have covered about 78 
miles in the last three days. The enemy is retreating 
fast and we are not yet in touch. There are reports 
of another great victory. It is said that we have taken 
20,000 prisoners and 150 guns. 

The second, dated August 28, runs: 

This evening we had news of victories gained by 
von Billow's Second Army; our souls were filled with 

126 



Von Kluck Changes Direction 

joy when the regimental bands played the Hymn of 
Praise by the light of the moon and of the bivouac 
fires, and the tune was taken up by thousands of voices. 
There was general rejoicing and jubilation, and when 
the next morning we resumed our march it was in 
the hope that we should celebrate the anniversary of 
Sedan before Paris. 

In reality Sir Douglas Haig's First Corps had 
not been seriously engaged at all. The men were 
wearied with marching day and night, and puzzled 
by continual retreating, for which they could not 
understand the reason, but a short rest and, above 
all, some sleep was all that was necessary to make 
them as fit for battle as they had been on the day 
on which they marched towards Mons. The cavalry 
had more than held their own whenever they had 
met the enemy, and though both they and their 
horses were tired their moral was high. The Third 
and Fifth Divisions of the Second Corps had indeed 
been highly tried: their losses had been heavy, they 
had fought two severe battles against great odds 
and a number of engagements during the retreat, 
they had endured long hours of continuous shelling, 
they had lost much equipment, and were not fit in 
the days which followed immediately on the battle of 
Le Cateau to fight another serious engagement. 

But both at Mons and at Le Cateau they had 
been withdrawn from their positions by order, and 

127 



Forty Days in 1914 



had not been driven from them by the enemy, on 
whom they had inflicted far heavier losses than they 
had suffered. They knew that whatever the reasons 
for the retreat might be it was not due to any 
failure on their part to hold the positions they had 
been asked to defend, and therefore their spirit 
was very different from that of a routed army, so 
that they too only required rest and sleep and the 
replacement of their lost equipment to make them 
again an effective fighting force ; while the Fourth 
Division and the 19th Brigade, which had been 
formed into a Third Corps under General Pulteney 
after they had crossed the Oise, had been less 
severely tried than Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien's 
two divisions, and needed an even shorter rest to 
make them ready for anything. 

It was the physical strain of the constant march- 
ing by day and by night, with such brief halts as 
left the men no time to prepare a hot meal, to 
wash, or to take off their boots and tend their 
blistered feet, much more than the fighting which 
told on the troops. At each halt, even at each short 
check, in the march the infantry dropped where 
they had stopped and were instantly snoring, so 
that the equally tired officers and non-commissioned 
officers had to rouse each man when the time to 
resume the weary tramp came. The days under a 
blazing August sun, when the long straight stretches 

128 



TEMBER 5 




Courtisols 




MAP 3. THE OURCQ AND THE MARNE SEPTEMBER 5 




Von Kluck Changes Direction 

of the white dusty highroads of France burned their 
sore and bleeding feet, were even more trying than 
the nights with their added sense of some vague 
unknown danger, to avoid which we were retreating, 
always retreating. But the bombardments of those 
days, heavy as they appeared to troops meeting 
for the first time a rain of high explosive shell in 
what to-day would be considered mere apologies 
for trenches, are not comparable with the tornadoes 
which now herald an attack, nor had the Germans 
added the barbarity of poison gas to the horrors 
of war, so that the mental and nervous exhaustion 
caused by these early battles was not as great as 
is produced by the prolonged struggles which have 
followed the establishment of trench lines from the 
Channel to Switzerland, and the recovery from 
bodily weariness is much more rapid than from 
nervous strain. The restorative effect, upon troops 
who have undergone extraordinary physical exer- 
tion, of a hot meal and good night's rest and a 
bath is little short of marvellous, and these were 
what our Army chiefly needed during the first week 
of the retreat to enable it to take the field again. 
The general condition of the British Army 
immediately after the battle of Le Cateau was in 
fact such that if our Second Corps had been followed 
up and forced again to fight against superior 
numbers it is difficult to see how it could have 

129 



Forty Days in 1914 



escaped disaster, and in that case Sir Douglas 
Haig's position would have been precarious ; but, 
if the pursuit were not pressed, it was certain that 
the array would quickly regain its fighting power 
if the enemy was kind enough to give us the one 
chance we needed. 

From the evening of August 26 Sir John French's 
retreat had been directed due south to the Aisne, 
between Soissons and Compiegne, and the river 
was safely crossed by the whole army during the 
forenoon of August 31. From then on it became 
possible to reduce the length of marches, to halt 
at night so that the weary men should have some 
rest, and to begin replacing the lost equipment of 
the Second Corps, so that the army as a whole 
steadily recovered from the effects of the severe 
strain through which it had passed. Its losses up 
to the end of the battle of Le Cateau, estimated by 
the enemy at 20,000 men, amounted to little more 
than half that number, and reinforcements were 
available to replace at least a part of these. 

Now what was von Kluck doing that he allowed 
our little army to escape? It would appear that 
his general instructions were to march south-west 
until he had overlapped the Allied left, and so 
south-westwards he went without regard to the 
direction of our retreat or to the opportunity 
which the fortune of war had presented to him. 

130 



Von Kluck Changes Direction 

There were French forces on the British left, 
and it was, in the main, against these that he 
directed his march on August 27. On the 26th 
he had been fighting on the front Le Cateau — 
Cambrai, and from the latter place he had driven 
back a part of d'Amade's Sixty-first Division. 
Two days later, on the 28th, that is, the day on 
which our Second Corps, marching due south, had 
reached the Oise near Noyon, he was attacking 
French troops at and to the north of Peronne with 
his right, while his left was just west of St. Quentin; 
so that in effect only his extreme left, consisting 
of his Ninth Corps, which was well to the east of Le 
Cateau during the battle and had been in touch 
with Sir Douglas Haig, crossed the line of march 
which Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien had followed in 
his retreat. There was therefore no pursuit at 
all of the British by the German troops which had 
fought at Le Cateau, for the whole of them were 
marched off in a direction which took them away 
from the retreating British. It was left to von 
Biilow to use such of his Second Army as he could 
spare from following up General de Lanrezac to 
pursue the British, with whom, as we have seen, 
his Guard Cavalry Division and part of his 
Seventh Corps came into contact on the 27th and 
28th, when they were engaged with Sir Douglas 
Haig and with our cavalry. On the 29th von 

131 



Forty Days in 1914 



Biilow had other things to think about, for on 
that day the French Fifth Army turned round, and 
advancing between Vervins and Ribemont attacked 
and inflicted a severe reverse upon von Billow's 
Guard and Tenth Corps in the neighbourhood of 
Guise. This most welcome diversion came at a 
very opportune moment for us, and effectively 
prevented von Biilow from taking up the pur- 
suit which von Kluck had neglected, but it 
was unfortunately not powerful enough to put a 
stop to the progress of the German left wing, and 
in fact de Lanrezac's Eighteenth Corps immediately 
on our right was heavily counter-attacked by the 
Germans and forced back. It was necessary to 
get our own army as quickly as possible out of the 
enemy's reach, so that it might be rested and re- 
equipped, and Manoury was still far from ready, 
for less than a half of the troops whom he expected 
had detrained, and only a portion of this half had 
arrived at the actual front. Therefore the retreat 
had to be continued. 

Von Kluck having captured Peronne on the 
28th, on the 29th moved forward in the general 
direction of Amiens with his extreme right extend- 
ing as far north as Albert and his left in the neigh- 
bourhood of Ham. On this day he attacked 
d'Amade's two reserve divisions, and such part of 
Manoury's Army as was ready for action along the 

132 



Von Kluck Changes Direction 

Somme, with his Second, Fourth, and Fourth 
Reserve Corps and two cavalry divisions, and 
secured the passages over the river. On the 30th 
he drove d'Amade back through Amiens and, 
after some delay in getting his columns across the 
Somme, had, by the evening of the 31st, forced 
Manoury across the Avre and halted north of that 
river, his front facing south and extending from 
Amiens through Roye towaids Guiscard. Manoury, 
perceiving that it would be hopeless to attempt 
to complete the concentration of his army in face 
of an enemy in superior force, fell back, in constant 
touch with von Kluck's right, southwards on St. 
Just, and thence through Creil towards the northern 
defences of Paris, where we shall find him later; 
but it is important to remember that his army began 
its existence on August 26 on the Somme, where it 
played an important part in drawing von Kluck from 
our retreating army, that it grew steadily both as 
it retired and during the fierce struggle on the 
Ourcq, and that it did not, as has often been 
supposed, issue from Paris like Minerva from the 
brain of Jove and fall, fully equipped for battle, 
upon von Kluck's flank and rear. 

August 31 saw von Kluck attain the extreme 
westerly point of his enveloping movement. The 
reports of the battle of Le Cateau and of the British 
retreat had by then reached von Moltke, who 

133 



Forty Days in 1914 



seems from the information he received to have 
come to the conclusion that the British Army had 
ceased to exist as a fighting force. The ease with 
which d'Amade's reserve divisions had been driven 
back from Cambrai and Peronne, and the passages 
of the Somme forced against Manoury's troops, 
led apparently to the equally hasty deduction that 
these were of little value. On the other hand the 
French Fifth Army had been making itself un- 
pleasant, and by actually moving forward on the 
29th instead of continuing to retreat had brought 
itself within the grasp of von Kluck's envelopment, 
provided always that neither Manoury nor Sir John 
French interfered, and judging from von Kluck's 
reports they were both incapable of interfering. 
Away down in the south on the extreme left of the 
German armies everything was progressing well. 
The French had been driven back as far as the 
outer forts of Epinal, and if they were fighting 
stubbornly in front of Nancy and Verdun this 
would show that they still had large forces heavily 
engaged on their right, and could not therefore 
spare reinforcements for the menaced left. The 
time appeared to have come for the pincers to be 
closed on the French armies. September 2, the 
anniversary of Sedan, was approaching, and dreams 
of a greater Sedan than had ever before been con- 
ceived by man began to kindle the thoughts of the 

134 



Von Kluck Changes Direction 

Emperor and his advisers to an extent which 
clouded their military judgement, and made them, 
in order to follow a will-o'-the-wisp, turn away 
from the solid advantages which they might have 
gained by destroying the British Army, by scatter- 
ing Manoury's force before it had time to con- 
centrate, and by occupying Paris, which lay at 
their mercy. 

This was the consequence of a pedantic ad- 
herence to theory. The German General Staff 
had absorbed the principle that the first object 
in war is the destruction of the enemy's main 
forces in the field, and that this achieved all 
else follows : fortresses fall like ripe plums from 
a shaken tree, capitals can be occupied at will, 
and complete and decisive victory is attained. 
They had learned from the study of past wars that 
when this principle had been neglected, when 
fortresses and capitals have proved too attractive, 
the penalty has been severe, and they were deter- 
mined that nothing should tempt them from 
following the precepts of their gospel. The "con- 
temptible" British Army was flying in disorder; 
its advanced base at Amiens lay at von Kluck's 
mercy and could be occupied at once and without 
difficulty, while cavalry could cut communication 
with the Channel ports, and this done, neither 
reinforcements nor stores could reach Sir John 
135 



Forty Days in 1914- 



French; the hastily collected French Territorials 
and reserve troops on the British left had proved 
of little value; the French Fifth Army was the 
left of the main French forces and was closely 
engaged with von Biilow, so that if von Kluck's 
masses could be brought down upon its flank, the 
whole French line would be rolled up and Paris 
entered after a victory such as history had never yet 
recorded. So von Kluck is told to send a detach- 
ment to occupy Amiens, to leave a flank guard to 
watch the British and the French forces on their 
left, and to change the direction of his main columns 
so as to bring them down upon de Lanrezac's flank. 
The fallacy of this reasoning lay in the assump- 
tions that the British Army had been defeated so 
decisively as to be incapable of interference, that 
Paris had only a moral and not a military value, 
and that Manoury could be safely neglected. On 
the first point the German Headquarters were 
apparently misinformed by von Kluck, but it 
should have been realised that an army which is 
not pursued recovers rapidly and cannot be left 
alone with impunity. The chief responsibility 
for the failure to pursue us must rest with von 
Kluck, who was the man on the spot, and who 
ought, whatever his instructions were, to have 
adapted them to the changes of the military 
situation as they occurred. To continue to march 

136 



Von Kluck Changes Direction 

south-west when the enemy is retiring due south 
is as curious a manoeuvre as is to be found in 
military history. War is very unforgiving of 
mistakes, and rarely offers a second time oppor- 
tunities which have not been accepted, while of all 
the opportunities which it can present the retreat 
of an enemy from a battle-field is the most favour- 
able if it is promptly seized, and the most pregnant 
of unpleasant consequences if it is neglected. 
Napoleon failed to pursue Blucher after he had 
defeated him at Ligny, and this failure led directly 
to his downfall at Waterloo ; von Kluck failed to 
pursue Smith-Dorrien after Le Cateau, and paid 
the penalty in the retreat to the Aisne. It may 
be assumed that the Germans obtained early in- 
formation that we were abandoning our main base 
at Havre, and they may have deduced from this 
that our army would be unable to receive from 
England reinforcements, stores, and supplies for 
a long time to come. If they were influenced by 
this consideration (and it would appear from the 
semi-official report which I have quoted that they 
were), then they had forgotten that our sea-power 
would allow us to open a new base upon the French 
Atlantic sea-board and to establish a line of com- 
munications not exposed to the predatory raids of 
their Uhlans. 

As to the second point — the value of Paris — 

m 



Forty Days in 1914 



it is perfectly true that its occupation would not 
have ended the war in the West, and that this 
result would only be attained by inflicting a 
crushing defeat on the Allied armies. The French 
Government, ready for any sacrifice, had made all 
preparations for transferring the seat of govern- 
ment to Bordeaux, and was prepared even to 
abandon the capital to the enemy if the need 
arose; but Paris, besides being the capital of 
France, was her most important railway centre 
and a large military depot. The great city was 
ideally placed for the assembly and mainten- 
ance of a force to counter just such a movement 
as von Kluck was now ordered to make, and the 
purely military advantages to be gained by deny- 
ing to Joffre the use of the railways converging 
on Paris were very real. D'Amade's hastily 
formed second-line divisions had not proved 
capable of resisting first-line German troops in 
superior numbers ; and Manoury, who had been 
met at a time when only a small portion of his 
army could be placed in the field, had not been 
able to oppose von Kluck effectively on the Somme ; 
but it was a hasty assumption that if he were left 
alone, and had the free use of the Paris railway 
junctions, he would not be able to increase and 
organise his forces, and the wise and prudent course 
was to strike at the weak enemy who was in reach 

138 



Von Kluck Changes Direction 

and to allow him neither time nor opportunity to 
become strong. Instead of doing this von Kluck 
repeated on the 30th his manoeuvre of the 27th, 
and just as he marched south-west from the 
British, who were retiring south from the battle- 
field of Le Cateau, so after driving in Manoury's 
advanced troops on the 29th, he the next day 
turned south-east, while the French like ourselves 
fell back southwards. 

If on the 30th von Kluck could leave a flank 
guard to watch both French and Manoury, he could 
certainly have detached a sufficient force on the 
27th to keep the latter from interfering with him 
while he fell with his main body upon the British 
Army, and either defeated it completely or drove it 
south of Paris. He could then have prevented the 
French from using the railways through Paris, have 
cut off Manoury and the French troops in the north 
from Joffre, and have drawn from the city the 
supplies of which he was running short. All these 
substantial gains were sacrificed in favour of a 
grandiose and ambitious scheme which, as events 
proved, could not be realised. It is true that by 
continuing to march south-west after the battle 
of Le Cateau von Kluck prevented Manoury from 
concentrating behind the Somme, but that result 
would have been obtained with no less certainty 
if the British Army had been effectively pursued, 

139 



Forty Days in 1914 



for Manoury could not have remained in the 
neighbourhood of Amiens with von Kluck's Army 
advancing past his right, threatening to interrupt 
his communications with Paris and to isolate him 
from the remainder of the Allied forces. 

There must before the war have been many 
anxious discussions in Germany between the 
military party, who believed in the power of 
Germany to carry through to a speedy and 
triumphal issue their vast programme of con- 
quest, and the more moderate and enlightened, 
who foresaw something of the feeling which the 
policy of blood and iron would arouse. Bethmann- 
Hollweg's intense depression on hearing the news 
of Britain's intervention is an indication of the 
anxiety of the latter party. It is easy to imagine 
that the shouts of the extremists at the news of 
the first German victories silenced all doubts. 
One can almost hear the Crown Prince and his 
friends saying, "We told you so. The German 
Army is irresistible. Our enemies are soft and 
degenerate. We cannot be too bold. Forward 
with God and Kaiser to a German triumph!" 
In short, Prussian conceit and self-sufficiency 
marred the execution of a well-laid plan. 

It has been reported that the Emperor, eager 
for an early and triumphal entry into Paris, strongly 
opposed the change in the direction of von Kluck's 

140 



Von Kluck Changes Direction 

march, but the evidence as to this is very vague, 
and I cannot but think that the probabilities are 
that he was on the side of those in favour of de- 
ferring the advance on the French capital until 
a greater Sedan had been consummated. His 
versatile and erratic mind was doubtless deeply 
impressed by the great successes which the surprise 
engineered for him by his generals had won, and 
he must have seen visions of taking prisoners by 
the hundred thousand, guns by the thousand, 
and colours by the hundred, in short, of a victory 
which should completely overshadow for all time 
the memory of the elder William and of the elder 
Moltke. Even the glory of riding through the 
Arc de Triomphe would be a small matter com- 
pared with so stupendous a denouement to a 
campaign of thirty days. 

Von Kluck was not alone in failing to appreciate 
the difference between a retreat undertaken to 
avoid a trap and a retirement following upon 
defeat in a battle which has been fought to the 
last. The French armies had been worsted in the 
first engagements, but they were not broken, and 
many of them had not as yet been completely 
engaged. It was the menace of von Kluck's 
advance and not the complete defeat of the French 
armies which had forced Joffre to swing back his 
line. He had been surprised and had to pay the 

141 



Forty Days in 1914 



military penalty of surrendering the initiative to 
the enemy and of being forced to change his plans in 
haste, but it is to his eternal glory that, amidst the 
collapse of his first schemes, and with a burden of 
responsibility on his shoulders which would have 
appalled an ordinary man, he never lost his grasp 
of the situation, never wavered in his determina- 
tion to return to the attack at the first opportunity, 
and in circumstances of extraordinary difficulty 
assembled at the right time and at the right place 
the forces necessary to enable him to seize the 
opportunity when it came. If Joffre stood the 
test of early failure, the German commanders did 
not stand the test of early success. For generations 
they and their forebears had laboured at perfect- 
ing their military machine, until in organisation, 
discipline, and equipment the German Army was 
admittedly the first of the armies of Europe, and 
they firmly believed that to this catalogue of its 
superiorities might be added valour and general- 
ship. After more than forty years of strenuous 
effort in time of peace the machine was now 
being tested in war, and everywhere their enemies 
were fleeing before its blows. The bulletin of 
August 27 announced that "the enemy has been 
beaten on the whole front," in the circumstances a 
perfectly justifiable announcement to make to the 
German people, but not an appreciation of the 

142 



Von Kluck Changes Direction 

position upon which military plans should have 
been based. Yet it appears clear from the 
Emperor's perfervid telegrams to his family, to 
his people, and to his Allies, and from the action 
of his military advisers that at this time he was 
convinced that the shining sword was irresistible, 
that the war in the West was already won, and 
that any risk might be taken in order to reap the 
full harvest of victory. 

Having given his Imperial sanction to the orders 
which were to go out to von Kluck, and being 
confident that all was going well in the North, the 
Emperor shortly after went off to see that his left, 
which was preparing an attack on Nancy, did not 
lag behind his brilliant right. 

It has generally been assumed by French 
writers on this period of the war that the decision 
to give up the march on Paris and to move against 
the flank of the French Fifth Army was not reached 
till much later, the date generally given being 
September 4, but it is quite evident that on the 
30th von Kluck's Army was engaged with Manoury 
between the Somme and the Avre, that on the 
31st he was wheeling southwards, and that from 
then on his infantry columns were marching south- 
eastwards as fast as the limits of human endurance 
would permit, while his cavalry and his left corps 
were crossing the Oise at and to the south of 

143 



Forty Days in 1914 



Noyon on the 31st, and moving towards the 
forest of Compiegne and Villers-Cotterets. This 
makes it probable that the conversion from the 
south-westerly movement, which had been con- 
tinued without deviation ever since Brussels was 
left on August 20, to 1 a march south-eastwards 
was ordered on the 30th by von Kluck, in accord- 
ance with instructions received from von Moltke, 
and quite certain that the change was not made 
later than the 31st, for from then his columns 
continued to move, not towards Paris, but towards 
the flank of the French Fifth Army, right up to 
the time when they were brought to a standstill 
by Joffre's manoeuvre. 

Von Kluck ordered his Fourth Reserve Corps to 
move by St. Just-en-Chaussee to cover the right 
rear of his march from any interference by Manoury, 
the French having quitted that place the previous 
day and moved back towards Creil. Von Marwitz's 
cavalry protected the outer flank of the movement, 
and marching south-eastward through the forest 
of Compiegne, came on the evening of August 31 
again into contact with the British Army, while 
on the evening of September 1 von Kluek's 
main body, which, now that the Fourth Reserve 
Corps had been detached on a separate mission, 
consisted of the Ninth, Third, Fourth, and Second 
Corps, in that order from left to right, lay with its 

144 



Von Kluck Changes Direction 

left a few miles north of Vic-sur-Aisne, and its 
right on the main Amiens — Compiegne road about 
twelve miles north-west of the latter place. 

The British Army crossed the Aisne during the 
31st and lay that night with its right, Sir Douglas 
Haig's corps, to the south-west of Soissons ; the 
centre, Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien's corps, between 
Villers-Cotterets and Crepy; and the left, General 
Pulteney's Corps, to the west of Crepy and to the 
south of the forest of Compiegne, the cavalry being 
disposed partly in the gaps between the corps and 
partly on the left flank. Here while our Army 
was still in this position a curious incident marked 
the dawn of September 1. For some days past 
such pressure as the enemy had brought to bear 
upon us had come from our right front, that is, 
from von Billow's Army, but now von Kluck's 
change of direction was bringing his cavalry into 
touch with us from a new direction upon our left 
front. The German Fourth Cavalry Division 
appears to have crossed the dense forest of Com- 
piegne, which would shield them effectively from 
the observation of our aeroplanes, during the late 
afternoon of the 31st, and to have halted close to 
the village of Nery, hoping to surprise early the 
next morning our Fourth Division, which they had 
located. Our 1st Cavalry Brigade had arrived at 
Nery after dark, and had, unknown to the enemy, 

145 



Forty Days in 1914 



come between them and the Fourth Division, so 
the next morning opened with a mutual surprise. 
Our men were engaged as day broke in watering 
their horses when two German batteries opened 
fire upon them. The situation was at first an 
anxious one for us as the German shells fell among 
our horse-lines. Only three of the six guns of "L" 
Battery could be placed in action, two of these 
being almost immediately silenced, but the one 
remaining gun continued firing to the last. The 
men of the 1st Cavalry Brigade rallied from their 
surprise, and they were promptly supported both 
by the 4th Cavalry Brigade and by the 19th 
Infantry Brigade of General Pulteney's corps, 
which had halted for the night in the immediate 
neighbourhood and had sprung to arms at the 
sound of the guns. The German cavalry, who had 
apparently been in complete ignorance that they 
were in the presence of so considerable a force, fell 
back, leaving eight guns and a number of prisoners 
in our hands, and cannot have felt proud of the 
circumstances in which they renewed acquaint- 
ance with our troops. 

About the same time that this combat was in 
progress the Fourth Division successfully repulsed 
another attack by German cavalry near Verberie, 
and the Fifth Division beat off an even sharper 
attempt by the enemy to get through what he 

146 



Von Kluck Changes Direction 

believed to be our broken front. Yet another 
surprise collision occurred later in the day in the 
forest of Villers-Cotterets, north of the town of that 
name. Sir Douglas Haig's corps was marching 
south-westwards through the forest so as to close 
finally the gap which had separated his troops from 
those of Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien ever since August 
25. The 4th and 6th Infantry Brigades of Haig's 
Second Division became engaged with German 
cavalry and the usual escort of Jagers, which were 
marching south-eastwards on Villers-Cotterets to 
clear the road for von Kluck's Third Corps. Some 
confused fighting ensued in the dense forest, in which 
the Germans were repulsed, and our men were able 
to resume their march, but not until the Irish 
Guards, who were here seriously engaged for the 
first time in their history, had suffered somewhat 
heavy losses. At the end of this march the whole 
of Sir John French's Army was once more united, 
Sir Douglas Haig's corps lying between La Ferte 
Milon and Betz, Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien's be- 
tween Betz and Nanteuil, with General Pulteney's 
corps and the bulk of the cavalry just to the west 
of the latter place. Directly parallel to the British 
front von Kluck's main bodies were halted about 
eight miles to the north on a line running eastward 
from the southern edge of the forest of Compiegne, 
so that the opponents of Mons and of Le Cateau 

147 



Forty Days in 1914 



were again face to face. General Manoury's Army 
had on this day fallen back from, the Oise near 
Creil and Pont Ste. Maxence to and to the south of 
Senlis, a movement which sensibly diminished the 
gap between the British and. the French on this 
flank. 

On September 2 there occurred an even more 
curious development than those which had resulted 
on the previous day from von Kluck's zig-zag 
marches. It appears that on the 1st consider- 
able bodies of the Second and Ninth Cavalry 
Divisions penetrated between Manoury's right 
and General French's left, occupied Chantilly, the 
Newmarket of France, which lies west of Senlis 
and fifteen miles north of the northern suburbs 
of Paris, pushed patrols up to the outer defences 
of the French capital, and were actively at work 
with armoured cars and parties of horsemen well 
to the rear both of the French Sixth Army and of 
the British Army. During the night of September 
1-2 they seem to have suddenly become aware 
that we and Manoury were closing in upon them 
from left and right, and to have moved off in a great 
hurry to avoid being caught in a trap. Our cavalry 
during their march of September 2 found four guns 
abandoned by the enemy's horse in the forest of 
Ermenonville, while parties of our infantry in the 
course of their march southward came upon equip- 

148 



Von Kluck Changes Direction 

ment, lorries, and waggons which had evidently 
been abandoned in great haste. 

When von Kluck's men had parted with the 
British Army after the battle of Le Cateau they 
had left it a very exhausted and to some extent 
disorganised force. While it would be absurd to 
pretend that the Third and Fifth Divisions in 
particular, which had lost a high proportion of 
their experienced officers and non-commissioned 
officers, a number of guns and machine-guns, and 
a quantity of transport, of which little had been 
replaced, had recovered altogether from the fiery 
trial through which they had passed, yet the 
Germans of the First Army on meeting us again 
found us with order completely restored and ready 
to reply at once and sharply to any attack, a dis- 
covery which caused an important modification in 
the German plans. At the time of the battle of 
Le Cateau they had been in close touch with our 
front and consequently well informed as to our 
movements, but now they found that they were no 
longer opposed, as they expected, to an army 
marching almost continuously day and night to 
escape their clutches, but to one moving in its own 
time and not in the least perturbed by their 
activities. Having dropped the threads which 
had once been in their hands, they appear to have 
been at first completely in the dark both as to 

149 



Forty Days in 1914 



our condition and to our movements, and to this 
fact must be ascribed the curious chance collisions 
and still more curious marches and counter-marches 
which took place at this time. Nor was this the 
only result of the orders which had sent the First 
German Army at first westwards away from the 
enemy whom they had been fighting and then 
brought them back hastily eastward into the 
presence of the same enemy. This manoeuvre 
had compelled von Kluck's men to march round 
two sides of a triangle, while the British had been 
moving along the base, and had put upon them a 
strain which, in the hot August days, proved well- 
nigh unendurable. An interesting picture of the 
state of von Kluck's Army during these days is 
given in the diary of a German officer taken prisoner 
by the French, who have translated and published 
his record of events. Writing on September 2, 
he says: 

Our men are done up. For four days x they have 
been marching 24 miles a day. The country is difficult, 
the roads are in bad condition, and barred by trees 
felled across them, the fields are pitted with shell-holes. 
The men stagger forward, their faces coated with 
dust, their uniform in rags, they look like living scare- 
crows. They march with their eyes closed, singing in 

1 I.e. since the change of direction on the 30th. The object 
of this rapid marching being probably to catch the Fifth 
French Army in the act of crossing the Marne. 

150 



Von Kluck Changes Direction 

chorus so that they shall not fall asleep on the march. 
The certainty of early victory and of the triumphal 
entry into Paris keeps them going and acts as a spur 
to their enthusiasm. Without this certainty of victory 
they would fall exhausted. They would go to sleep 
where they fell so as to get to sleep somehow or anyhow. 
It is the delirium of victory which sustains our men, 
and in order that their bodies may be as intoxicated as 
their souls, they drink to excess, but this drunkenness 
helps to keep them going. To-day after an inspection 
the general was furious. He wanted to stop this 
general drunkenness. We managed to dissuade him 
from giving severe orders. If there were too much 
severity, the army would not march. Abnormal stim- 
ulants are necessary to make abnormal fatigue endur- 
able. We will put all that right in Paris. There we 
will prohibit the sale of alcohol, and as soon as the men 
are able to rest on their laurels, order will reappear. 

I would remark with reference to this candid 
picture of the state of discipline of the German 
Army that the fatigues and privations of our 
Second Corps during the first marches after Le 
Cateau were certainly greater than any which von 
Kluck's men had had at this time to undergo, and 
that our men had not the delirium of victory to 
sustain them, yet I never saw nor heard of a single 
case of drunkenness amongst them. As the wine 
districts of France were entered by the enemy and 
wine was obtainable everywhere this drunkenness 
in the German Army increased to an extraordinary 

151 



Forty Days in 19 H 



extent, and when the Germans were in retreat to 
the Aisne whole parties of officers were captured be- 
cause they were too intoxicated to move. Writing 
on September 3, the diarist says : 

We are leaving Paris on our right and are going to 
concentrate toward the south-east against the debris 
of the Franco-British Army, which is vainly endeavour- 
ing to reunite its scattered fragments along the Marne. 
. . . Our men have no idea that we are giving up for 
the time being our march on Paris. They are counting 
so much on finding themselves at the gates of Paris 
to-morrow or the day after that it would be cruel to 
undeceive them. They would at once lose all their 
spring. 

Von Kluck would not communicate to his sub- 
ordinates more of his plans and intentions than it 
was necessary for them to know in order that they 
might carry out intelligently their daily tasks, 
therefore it is not at all astonishing that an officer 
of one of his formations should only discover on 
September 3, from the direction of the marches, 
that Paris was not the goal. The movements of 
the 3rd, which would have been ordered on the 
evening of the 2nd, took von Kluck's left through 
Neuilly-St. Front, his centre through La Ferte 
Milon and Betz, and his right through Nanteuil 
towards the Marne between Chateau-Thierry and 
La Ferte-sous-Jouarre, obviously away from Paris. 
Indeed, the two left corps, the Ninth and the Third, 

152 



Von Kluck Changes Direction 

must have realised when they crossed the Aisne 
on the 1st and moved south-east to the forest of 
Villers-Cotterets that they at least were not 
marching directly on Paris ; but the two right corps 
of the main group, the Fourth and Second, appar- 
ently still had hopes until they moved across the 
main Soissons — Paris road. This statement there- 
fore shows that von Kluck' s decision to leave Paris 
for the time being could not have been taken later 
than the evening of the 2nd, and as there was no 
perceptible change in the direction of his marches 
between August 31 and September 4 it is much 
more probable that, as I have suggested, the vital 
decision was reached on August 30. The officer 
describes how he saw von Kluck on September 4, 
and had a conversation with one of his staff, who 
told him that the General had no doubt that the 
Germans would quickly crush the French Army. 

The reports of spies who had seen the enemy in 
retreat are very satisfactory. They are a disorganised 
and discontented horde, and there is no chance of their 
being able to do us any harm. The General fears 
nothing from the direction of Paris. We will return 
to Paris after we have destroyed the remains of the 
Franco-British Army. The Fourth Reserve Corps will 
have the honour of the triumphal entry into the French 
capital. 

On the date of this last entry in the diary, 
153 



Forty Bays in 1914- 



September 4, von Kluck's main body, continuing 
its march south-eastwards, had, for the most part, 
crossed the Marne, and was disposed along the 
Petit Morin between Montmirail and La Ferte-sous- 
Jouarre, with the Fourth Reserve Corps watching 
his left rear about half-way between Nanteuil and 
Meaux, some eight miles west of the Ourcq, and his 
cavalry across the Petit Morin in touch with our 
troopers. Sir John French, who had continued a 
now leisurely retirement, had on the 3rd crossed the 
Marne and halted to the south of that river between 
La Ferte-sous-Jouarre and Lagny. While we were 
still in this position the Fifth French Army on our 
right was attacked and pushed back, and as Joffre, 
whose plans were now beginning to take definite 
shape, required more room for this army, which 
had to take ground rather farther to the west 
owing to the intervention on its right of his new 
Ninth Army under the command of General Foch, 
the French Commander-in-Chief requested Sir John 
French to fall back yet once more, and so on the 
night of the 4th-5th we marched to the south of the 
forest of Crecy, and halting there on September 5 
brought the long and adventurous retreat to an 
end. 



154 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE OURCQ, AND THE MARNE 

It is now time to see what had been happening on 
the rest of the front while von Kluck's march was 
in progress. Up to the afternoon of August 23, 
when the enemy's plan stood revealed to him, 
Joffre had, it will be remembered, hoped to strike 
the flanjc of the German armies moving through 
Belgium by sending his Fourth Army, which had 
formed his original reserve, forward through the 
Ardennes. This movement had already developed 
on August 23, by which time General Langle de 
Cary, who commanded the Fourth Army, had 
crossed the Semois and come into collision with the 
German Fourth Army; but he had found himself 
hampered in the wooded and mountainous country, 
and was unable to make his weight felt before von 
Kluck's turning movement had taken effect. This 
was what the Germans had calculated on, and they 
proved right, for their envelopment, which by 
August 27 had driven the Franco-British left to the 
south of St. Quentin, was then considerably nearer to 
Paris than was the French Fourth Army ; and Joffre 

155 



Forty Days in 1914 



had been compelled to draw back his whole line 
north of Verdun, pivoting on the fortress, in front 
of which General Sarrail, who had now succeeded 
General Ruffey in command of the Third Army, was 
successfully holding the German Crown Prince. So 
Langle de Cary had by September 4 retired slowly, 
through Rheims and Chalons, to a position astride 
the Marne south of Vitry le Francois, with his right 
in touch with Sarrail's left, which had swung back 
through the Argonne to the south-east of Verdun. 

Joffre's second offensive plan had therefore 
failed to mature, but in no wise discouraged he 
immediately set about preparing a third. As early 
as August 25 he issued the following order: 

As it has not proved possible to carry out the 
offensive manoeuvre which had been planned, the 
object of the future operations will be to reconstitute 
on our left flank, with the Fourth and Fifth Armies, 
the British Army, and new forces drawn from our 
right, a mass capable of resuming the offensive while 
the other armies containing the enemy for the time nec- 
essary. 

A new group will be formed in the neighbourhood 
of Amiens between August 27 and September 2. 

This was the birth of Manoury's Sixth Army 
which Joffre had hoped would be able to take the 
offensive from the Somme. But von Kluck had 
intervened too quickly, and Manoury, compelled 

156 



The Ourcq and the Marne 



to retire towards Paris, had become separated 
from d'Amade's two reserve divisions, the Sixty- 
first and Sixty-second, which had retired westward 
through Amiens while Manoury was falling back 
on Creil. From then on the task of completing 
the formation of the Sixth Army was entrusted 
to General Gallieni, the Governor of Paris, who set 
himself to increase Manoury's forces by reassembling 
and transporting to Paris d'Amade's two divisions, 
by constituting a new Forty-fifth Active Division 
of troops which had been drawn from Algeria, and 
by expediting the detrainment and despatch of 
other troops which Joffre was sending north from 
his right, the most important of these reinforce- 
ments being the Fourth Corps, which was detached 
from Sarrail at Verdun. On the evening of 
September 4 Manoury was covering Paris on the 
north-east, with his right just north of the Marne 
at Lagny, and his left through Dammartin. He 
then had with him the Seventh Corps (which had 
been withdrawn by Joffre from the Alsace group, 
had detrained near Amiens, been partly engaged 
with von Kluck on the Somme, and had then re- 
treated towards Paris), the Fifty-fifth and Fifty- 
sixth Reserve Divisions, a brigade of Moroccan 
troops, and some Marines, and with these forces 
was in touch with von Kluck's Fourth Reserve 
Corps to the west of the Ourcq. The new Forty- 

157 



Forty Days in 1914 



fifth Division would be ready to join Manoury on 
the 6th, the Fourth Corps had begun to detrain 
in Paris on the 5th, and d'Amade's Sixty-first 
Division was also assembling near the capital. 
Therefore Manoury was not only considerably 
superior to the German force immediately in front 
of him, but was certain of receiving reinforcements, 
while von Kluck had the greater part of his army 
across the Marne, well to the south-east, and was 
deeply committed. The time was ripe for Joffre's 
counter-stroke. 

The French Commander-in-Chief had not been 
content with the formation of a Sixth Army, for 
his principle, in accordance with the whole trend 
of modern French military thought, being to 
manoeuvre, not on a fixed plan, but in agreement 
with the development of the situation, he required 
to have in his hand as large a reserve as pos- 
sible, so that he might either take advantage of 
opportunities as they presented themselves or be 
ready to parry an unexpected blow. Therefore, on 
August 29, when it had become clear that Manoury 
would have to fall back from the Somme, he had 
ordered the formation of the Ninth Army, under 
General Foch. To create this he drew partly upon 
his right and partly upon the Fourth Army, which 
had been the least tried of any of his forces. By 
this means he obtained for Foch an army of eight 

158 



The Ourcq and the Marne 



infantry divisions, and a cavalry division, and, as 
soon as it became evident that the German south- 
easterly movement was bringing the enemy's 
main weight to the south of Rheims, he interposed 
this new army between the Fourth and Fifth Armies, 
so that the Fifth Army, taking ground to its left, 
might be able to intervene more effectively in the 
attack upon von Kluck, and the centre of his line 
between Paris and Verdun might be held safely 
while that attack was maturing. Accordingly, on 
the evening of September 4, Foch had taken his 
place in the line to the south of the St. Gond 
marshes with his centre about La Fere Champe- 
noise. 

With these dispositions completed Joffre was 
ready, and on September 4 he issued the following 
order : 

It is necessary to profit by the dangerous situation 
in which the First German Army has placed itself, by 
concentrating against it the efforts of the Allied Armies 
on the extreme left. During September 5 all arrange- 
ments will be made to begin the attack on the 6th. 

Then follow the tasks of the different armies. 
Manoury was to drive the Germans over the Ourcq; 
the British Army was to advance north-east and 
attack the Germans on the Grand Morin on either 
side of Coulommiers, while the Fifth Army on the 
British right advanced due north. Farther to the 

159 



Forty Days in 1914- 



right Foch was to hold the weight of the enemy 
in the centre of the new battle-front and cover the 
offensive of the Fifth Army. This was the order 
which turned retreat into advance, and at the 
moment when a complete triumph for the German 
arms appeared to be in sight changed the whole 
course of the war in the West. It is important to 
notice the role assigned to the British Army, because 
it has been hinted that we did not give Manoury 
all the assistance which he was entitled to expect. 
We were to advance in a north-easterly direction 
between the Fifth and Sixth Armies and were not 
to swerve either to the right or left to take part 
in battles which might be raging on our flanks. 
The wisdom of Joffre's choice of the line on which 
we were to advance will appear. But before 
following out the consequences of this order we 
must look for a moment to the extreme right, 
which had furnished so large a part of the troops 
of which Joffre had formed his two new armies. 

The weakened Alsace group had, as the German 
communique of August 29 announced, been com- 
pelled to fall back on the fortresses of Belfort 
and Epinal, while farther to the north Castelnau, 
by constant local attacks in front of Nancy, covered 
the withdrawal of French troops from the right 
flank, and successfully kept the enemy under the 

160 



c_e 



>A 



ERDUN 

w 



^S t Mihiel 



/I 



igny- 

n-Barrois 



> 



Armies 



Canals 



20 



MAP_4. THE OURCQ AND THE MARNE SEPTEMBER 9 



(MORNING) 




The Ourcq and the Marne 



delusion that Joffre's main forces were still in this 
part of the field. 

The great success achieved by their heavy 
howitzers at Namur had inspired the Germans 
with a hope that it might be possible to complete 
the destruction of the French armies by bursting 
through the formidable barrier of fortresses which 
line the eastern frontier of France. On September 4 
we find the German communique saying: 

The mobile heavy batteries which have been sent 
to us by Austria have rendered us valuable services 
at the capture of Givet and Namur. The mobility and 
the effect of the fire of these batteries are remarkable. 
The forts of Hirson, Ayelle, Conde, La Fere, and Laon 
have been taken without fighting, and all the forts in 
northern France are now in our possession, except 
Maubeuge. The enemy is in retreat to the Marne before 
the armies of Generals von Kluck, von Hausen, von 
Biilow, and of the Duke of Wiirtemburg. The armies 
of the Crown Prince of Bavaria and of General von 
Heeringen have still in front of them strong enemy 
forces holding entrenched positions in French Lorraine. 

This pronouncement shows that up to the very 
eve of the battles of the Ourcq and the Marne the 
Germans believed that the Franco-British left had 
been beaten, and that the French right was still 
in great strength. The Kaiser, under the convic- 
tion that von Kluck and von Biilow on the right 
had only to go forward to turn retreat into disaster, 

161 



Forty Days in 1914 



had come out to witness the defeat of the main 
French forces in the south and to make his entry 
into Nancy. So while Joffre was completing his 
preparations for the counter-stroke against von 
Kluck, Castelnau was fighting in front of Nancy 
against the armies of the Crown Prince Rupprecht 
and von Heeringen a battle very similar to our 
first battle of Ypres. From September 3 onwards 
Castelnau was with his reduced forces incessantly 
attacked by overwhelming numbers, the effort of 
the Germans culminating in a Kaiser battle on 
September 6, in which they were completely 
repulsed. As at Ypres this was followed, after 
the climax had been passed, by a number of 
spasmodic attacks probably intended to keep in 
the south the large forces which the Germans 
falsely believed to be in front of Nancy; these 
attacks finally dying away on the 11th, when the 
Germans in the north were in full retreat to the 
Aisne. This splendid resistance of Castelnau's 
men in face of great odds undoubtedly confirmed 
the Germans in their over-estimate of the French 
strength in the south, and the resultant under- 
estimate of the Allied strength in the north ; for 
von Kluck continued to commit himself deeper 
and deeper, and on September 5 1 we find him still 
moving southwards from the Petit Morin across 
*For th^ position on September 5 see Map III. 

162 



The Ourcq and the Marne 



the Grand Morin, ready to strike at the French 
Fifth Army next day. But by the evening of 
the 5th unexpected news had reached him. His 
Fourth Reserve Corps had reported to him that 
they had been attacked by French forces in superior 
numbers and had been driven back towards the 
Ourcq. He then became suddenly aware that 
Manoury, so far from retreating or passively 
protecting Paris, was a serious menace to his rear. 
The orders conveying the news that we were 
to turn about and go forward reached the British 
Army on the afternoon of September 5, and were 
received with the deepest joy and thankfulness. 
To all but the few who were in the confidence of 
Sir John French the advance was just as inex- 
plicable as the retreat had been, but now no one 
bothered his head with searchings for causes — 
something had happened and we were to move 
north. "Why, it's better than Corunna. Moore 
had to take to his ships, he did not advance again," 
said one beaming Brigadier when he received his 
orders. Many of our battalions did not know when 
they turned out of their billets on the morning of 
September 6 whether they were not to march to 
the Atlantic, and a spontaneous burst of cheering 
welcomed the discovery that they were heading 
northwards. The news, in fact, supplied the moral 
fillip which was the one thing needed to make the 

163 



Forty Days in 1914 



army forget its troubles, and complete the good 
work begun by sleep and regular food. The 
Second Corps was still woefully deficient in ex- 
perienced officers, and owing to the delay caused 
by the change of the base and to the congestion 
of the railways around Paris, by the movement 
of troops from the south to reinforce Manoury, it 
had proved impossible to replace much of the lost 
equipment, and the Fifth Division in particular 
was far short of its proper complement of guns. 
Still the ranks had been partially refilled with drafts, 
and we marched at dawn of a beautiful September 
morning back across the forest of Crecy in a very 
different spirit from that in which we had moved 
south through the same forest some thirty hours 
before. 

Von Kluck had decided that he must, to save 
himself, stop his advance and reinforce his Fourth 
Reserve Corps so as to defeat Manoury, and he 
therefore ordered his cavalry under von Marwitz 
to delay the advance of the British Army, while he 
marched his Second Corps, which on the night of 
the 5th-6th had halted at and about Coulommiers, 
back across the Marne. A little later he also with- 
drew his Fourth Corps, which had been opposite 
our right and the left of the Fifth French Army, 
and sent it too northwards to fight Manoury, 
thus leaving a very large gap to be filled by his 

164 



The Ourcq and the Marne 



mounted troops. His general plan appears to 
have been at this time to assemble behind his 
Fourth Reserve Corps, which should draw Manoury 
on, a large force to fall upon and destroy the bold 
Frenchman, while his cavalry screen held up the 
British Army, and his left in conjunction with von 
Bulow's right stopped the Fifth French Army. 
This, unfortunately for him, they entirely failed 
to do, for Franchet d'Esperey, who had now re- 
placed de Lanrezac in the command of the Fifth 
Army, steadily gained ground throughout the day, 
and the German cavalry, after resisting the British 
progress for some time in the forest of Crecy, find- 
ing that our advance on a broad front threatened 
their retreat, fell back to the Grand Morin, which 
was reached by the British centre in the evening. 

While this was going on, the Germans farther 
to the south were heavily attacking Foch and 
L angle de Cary, and both these armies were com- 
pelled to give some ground. 

It is not my purpose to attempt a detailed 
description of the great battle which raged during 
the next three days over a front of 150 miles from 
the Argonne almost to the outer defences of Paris, 
but it is necessary to understand its broad lines 
in order to follow what happened to von Kluck, 
and how his situation reacted on the other German 
Armies engaged. From the time when it became 

165 



Forty Days in 19 H 



clear that von Kluck in spite of his strenuous 
marches would not be able to cut off the French 
Fifth Army on the Marne, and that the British 
Army, again in being, was on Franchet d'Esperey's 
flank, some modification of the German scheme 
had become necessary. The outer flank of the 
British Army rested upon the defences of Paris, 
and an immediate envelopment of the Allied left 
was no longer in question, so instead, the German 
aim became to break through the French centre 
to the south of Epernay, sweep the debris of the 
western half into Paris, which would then be 
invested, while the eastern half was also broken 
in front of Nancy and driven towards Verdun, 
which was already partially enveloped on the north 
and west. The German Crown Prince's left was 
already well round Verdun, and if his Bavarian 
colleague and von Heeringen played their part 
the bulk of the forces on the French right could 
be locked up in the fortress and kept out of harm's 
way, while the German Second and Third Armies 
with von Kluck's help herded the Allied centre 
and left into Paris. 

Some such decision as this was apparently 
reached about September 2, that is, after von 
Kluck had again come into contact with the 
British army, and found that it was not quite such 
a rabble as had been supposed. The attack upon 

166 



The Ourcq and the Marine 



Nancy, which had been planned as part of the 
original programme of envelopment (it was in fact 
to have been the left arm of the pincers), had not 
then developed, and could be fitted into the new pro- 
gramme. The Allied centre was sagging badly, and 
might snap if it was pressed hard, while von Kluck 
advancing across the Marne would not only lend 
a hand to von Biilow by keeping the British Army 
and the French Fifth Army fully occupied, but 
would act as a pivot upon which the German centre 
would wheel to its right as it drove the enemy 
opposed to it across the Seine in a westerly direc- 
tion. It is only possible to explain the attacks 
upon Nancy and on Foch's Army, and von Kluck's 
advance across the Marne on September 4, on the 
basis of some such general plan as I have indicated, 
for all these must have been prepared at a time 
when it was clear that the First German Army 
had not succeeded in getting round the Allied left, 
and before the Germans were aware of Manoury's 
counter-threat. This new programme of break- 
ing through the centre apparently runs counter to 
the principles on which the original German plan 
was based, if my reading of the German mind is 
correct. They had, I have suggested, in the first 
instance avoided the attempt to get a decision by 
breaking through the front as being slow and costly 
in comparison with an envelopment of a flank. 

167 



Forty Days in 1914 



But I believe that all the evidence points to the 
conclusion that the Germans, at this time, regarded 
the Allies in the West as substantially a beaten 
foe, and it is justifiable to adopt methods against 
a beaten foe which would be quite out of place 
against a more formidable opponent. It is true 
that the Germans had found the British Army 
more capable of resistance than they had expected, 
but it had not attempted to attack, and the Allies 
as a whole had been retiring for nearly a fort- 
night, and had been losing very heavily, so they 
may well have argued that the time had come to 
break down the enemy's last powers of resistance, 
and that meticulous adherence to theories which 
had been formed to meet quite other conditions 
was no longer in place. 

One part of this ambitious programme had some 
success, for very shortly after the great attacks 
on Nancy were begun the German Crown Prince 
started an offensive against General Sarrail's right, 
which was gradually driven back across the Heights 
of the Meuse between Toul and Verdun, and so was 
produced in the French front the beginning of that 
curious indentation with its head on the Meuse near 
St. Mihiel which the Germans maintained until 
driven from it in September 1918 by the First 
American Army. But without the remaining con- 
comitants of the plan this success proved harmless, 

168 



The Ourcq and the Marne 



and as early as the eve of September 6 the Germans 
had discovered that their castle in Spain was tum- 
bling about their ears. The left arm of the encircling 
movement had definitely failed before Nancy, and 
the right was found to be in a very dangerous posi- 
tion. Being good soldiers, far from holding up their 
hands in despair, they immediately shaped a plan 
to meet the situation. The greater part of the 
Second and Third Armies were, as arranged, to 
unite in a desperate effort to overwhelm Foch and 
burst through the French centre, and von Kluck, 
as his reinforcements from the south came into 
play, was to defeat Manoury, while the British 
and the French Fifth Army were kept occupied 
by comparatively weak forces. 

This was a bold effort to retrieve the situation, 
and it promised, if successful, to give the Germans 
such a victory as would shatter the Franco-British 
left wing and leave Paris at the mercy of the con- 
queror. If Foch could be broken and driven back to 
the Seine, Sir John French and Franchet d'Esperey 
enticed slowly forward, while von Kluck, working 
round Manoury's northern flank, enveloped him and 
drove him back into Paris, then the British and 
the French Fifth Army, already sorely tried by hard 
fighting and a long retreat, would be caught be- 
tween von Kluck and von Biilow and compelled 
either to fly precipitately or to accept battle under 

169 



Forty Days in 1914 



most unfavourable conditions. There were no 
half-measures in this plan, but it could not be 
carried through unless Manoury were driven back 
into the defences of Paris and rendered harmless, 
for it must have been clear to the German leaders 
that if the French Sixth Army had been reinforced 
once it might be reinforced again, and that there- 
fore a temporary check to Manoury would leave 
the danger to their rear unscotched. To strengthen 
the Fourth Reserve Corps with sufficient force to 
allow of the Ourcq being held against Manoury 
would have meant weakening the remainder of 
the First Army to an extent which would have 
compelled it to abandon attack, and to stand on 
the defensive along the Grand Morin against the 
British and the French Fifth Army. This would 
have had the effect of handing over the initiative 
on the western flank to the Allies, an alternative 
which nothing in the general situation, still ap- 
parently very favourable to their arms, would 
have been likely to justify in the minds of the 
German High Command. Accordingly it was de- 
cided that Manoury should be crushed, and that, 
if necessary, such part of von Kluck's Army as was 
not required for this purpose should give ground 
before the British and the French Fifth Army. 

For the realisation of this bold scheme it was 
essential, first, that Foch should be smashed, 

170 



The Ourcq and the Marne 



and secondly, that the British Army should be 
held off long enough to allow von Kluck the 
time necessary to defeat Manoury thoroughly. 
Of these two essentials the second was the more 
important, for even if the plan to defeat Foch 
failed, von Kluck could, provided he overthrew 
the French Sixth Army, escape from the critical 
position in which he was placed, more troops could 
be brought south from Belgium and Maubeuge, 
which was on the point of falling, and the attack 
on the Allied left could be resumed after an un- 
fortunate but by no means fatal delay. On the 
other hand, if the British were to come down upon 
von Kluek's flank and rear while Manoury still 
held the field then there would be nothing for it 
but retreat. 

Von Kluck no doubt weighed the chances care- 
fully, but he was apparently still under the influence 
of his early impressions of our army, which he 
regarded as a defeated and all but negligible force. 
He was also unaware of the extent of the re- 
inforcements which Joffre and Gallieni had pre- 
pared for Manoury, and he seems to have counted 
upon having sufficient time to defeat the French 
Sixth Army if he struck hard with every man he 
could collect. He therefore sent both his Second 
and Fourth Corps northwards on the 6th from 
the British front, a decision which was evidently 

171 



Forty Days in 1914- 



reached in great haste, for on the forenoon of the 
6th our First Corps, advancing towards the Grand 
Morin, became aware of a column of German 
infantry moving southwards towards them. This 
column suddenly turned about and marched north- 
wards without firing a shot, and it would seem 
that it had only then received information of the 
change of plan. 

The British troops very naturally supposed that 
the enemy in front of them was in full retreat. They 
were destined to bring about the retreat of the 
First German Army, but these first backward move- 
ments of the enemy were, though we did not then 
know it, rather an alteration in the dispositions 
of the Germans on the battle-field than a retreat. 
Only von Marwitz's cavalry corps of three divisions 
was at first left to hold us back. But the German 
horsemen were not trained to fight on foot and 
to use the rifle to the same degree as our cavalry, 
and the small force of Jagers who accompanied them 
could not be everywhere, so von Marwitz was not 
able to delay us as von Kluck had hoped, which 
meant there was less time for the defeat of Manoury. 
Not only was this so, but Manoury's Army was 
growing in strength, so that more and not less time 
was required to accomplish its defeat. We therefore 
find von Kluck continually adopting expedients 
to stay the British advance, now reinforcing von 

172 



The Ourcq and the Marne 



Marwitz with such stray infantry as he can get 
together, now sending him additional artillery, 
and towards the end borrowing more cavalry from 
his neighbor von Biilow. 

The course of the battle is then that Manoury 
becomes more and more heavily engaged as von 
Kluck develops his strength against him, but 
being continually reinforced by the troops sent 
out from Paris is just able to hold his own. The 
British and the French Fifth Armies drive the 
Germans opposed to them steadily northwards, 
while Foch in the centre, fighting desperately and 
counter-attacking whenever he gets an opportunity, 
is slowly pushed back to the south of La Fere 
Champenoise. 

September 8 was a critical day on the left 
flank. Manoury, very hard pressed throughout 
the morning and the afternoon, was forced to 
give ground, some of his troops, especially his 
gallant Seventh Corps which had been fighting 
since the beginning of the battle, were becoming 
exhausted, while his left was in danger of envelop- 
ment as Von Kluck deployed more and more troops 
upon his northern flank. During the day the 
Germans captured Betz and pressed forward to- 
wards Nanteuil, attacking at the same time the 
whole of Manoury's front as far south as the out- 
skirts of Meaux. But the stream of reinforcements 

173 



V^ 



Forty Days in 1914 



from Paris was flowing steadily north-east. The 
Forty-fifth Division had arrived on the 6th, as 
had one division of the Fourth Corps, which had 
gone to support the British left south of Meaux. 
The first of d'Araade's divisions came into action 
on the 7th, and now on the critical 8th the remain- 
ing division of the Fourth Corps, which had been 
rushed out of Paris by Gallieni in motor-buses 
and taxis the day before, was brought into line. 
Thus the French Sixth Army was holding on 
gallantly, while the advance of the British and 
the Fifth Armies was now beginning to tell. 

We entered Coulommiers early on the 7th, and 
found that von Klucks Second Corps had left it 
in great haste the previous day. The little town 
had been thoroughly pillaged by the enemy, who 
had stolen such provisions and liquor as they could 
(lay their hands upon, carried off any portable 
valuables, and ruthlessly smashed such as were 
guilty of the crime of being too large or too heavy 
for a German haversack. Throughout the day 
there were a number of engagements at various 
times along our front with the enemy's cavalry, 
who were everywhere thrown back. On the 8th 
we continued our advance northwards to the Petit 
Morin, where von Marwitz's cavalry, supported by 
infantry and some heavy artillery, made another 

174 



The Ourcq and the Marne 



stand in order to hold us up. The Guard Rifles, 1 
brought up hastily in lorries, had entrenched a 
position along the river at Orly, and were told 
to hold it to the last, orders which they carried out 
to the letter when deserted by the German cavalry, 
for in the end we either killed or captured almost 
the whole of the force. Throughout the forenoon 
the enemy made resolute attempts to hold the 
line of the Petit Morin from Montmirail to its 
junction with the Marne at La Ferte-soois-Jouarre, 
but by noon after a stiff fight Allenby's cavalry 
with the help of Haig's infantry, had forced the 
passages of the river about ten miles to the west of 
Montmirail, and the German cavalry, fearing to be 
cut off on the Marne, retired, leaving their infantry, 
who were closely engaged with the heads of our 
infantry columns, to look after themselves. The 
day ended with our troops well across the Petit 
Morin, having taken several hundred prisoners, 
and a few guns, while Franchet d'Esperey on our 
right also crossed the river with his left and drove 
back the Germans from Montmirail. 

This first considerable capture of German 
prisoners had a most inspiriting effect upon our 
men, and the infantry, who a short time before 
would barely support the weight of their packs, 

1 The force consisted of parts both of the Guard Jagers and 
Guard Schiitzen regiments. 

175 



Forty Days in 1914 



now with the British soldier's passion for souvenirs 
merrily loaded themselves with the shakos of the 
Guard Rifles, with captured rifles and even with 
the heavy German greatcoats. 

Von Kluck, on hearing that we had forced the 
Petit Morin, gave orders for the bridges over the 
Marne to be destroyed, but he was too late, and 
his cavalry could only blow up those at La Ferte- 
sous-Jouarre. 

It was with great joy that our main columns 
advancing at dawn on the 9th 1 found that not only 
were the bridges to the west of Chateau-Thierry 
intact, but that the enemy had made no attempt 
to hold this part of the Marne. The river here 
runs through a deep gully, the cliffs on the north 
bank being crowned with thick beech woods, from 
which the roads winding down to the bridges on 
the south side are in full view, and had the enemy 
posted a few guns and machine-guns in these woods 
it would have been a matter of great difficulty 
either to locate them exactly or to judge of his 
strength. The position was, in fact, admirably 
suited for delay, but von Marwitz's horses were 
exhausted, he had been given a bigger task than 
he could carry out, his men had been roughly 
handled the day before, and he was no longer 
capable even of attempting to close all the doors 
*For the position on September 9 see Map IV. 

1176 



The Ourcq and the Marne 



which opened upon von Kluck's flank and rear. 
It was not until we were well established on the 
heights north of the river that the German guns 
opened upon us, and as early as 9 a.m. on the 9th 
our Second Corps had not only crossed the Marne, 
but the leading brigade of the Third Division was 
established more than four miles beyond the river, 
on the Chateau-Thierry — Lizy road, where it was 
well north of the latitude of von Kluck's left flank, 
which was fighting hard with Manoury across the 
Ourcq, twelve miles to the west. Had we then been 
able to press forward on the whole front we might 
well have cut off a considerable part of the German 
First Army. But unfortunately the First Corps 
on the right was delayed for some little time by 
a threat of attack on its flank from Chateau-Thierry, 
which was still held by the enemy, and was unable 
to come into line until the afternoon, and the 
Third Corps on the left, which was endeavouring 
to cross at La Ferte-sous-Jouarre, was checked at 
that place, both by the destruction of the bridges 
and by the enemy's defence of the line of the Marne 
at this point. The delay enabled the Germans to 
patch up some sort of defensive line across the 
bend of the Marne between Chateau-Thierry and 
Lizy. Von Richthofen's cavalry from the German 
Second Army came from the east to help the hard- 
pressed von Marwitz, while von Kluck reinforced 

177 



Forty Days in 1914 



his horse with hastily assembled infantry detach- 
ments, and swung round some of his heavy artillery 
to support them. During the afternoon there 
was heavy fighting with this new German screen, 
in which the 1st battalion of the Lincolnshire 
Regiment had the honour of capturing the first 
battery of German howitzers which fell into our 
hands in this war. But long before this the 
presence of the British forces north of the Marne 
had taken effect. Von Kluck had at an early 
hour begun to press his envelopment of Manoury's 
left flank in a last attempt to complete the defeat 
of the French before we could intervene, and 
advancing from the direction of Betz had occupied 
Nanteuil. It was a question of hours only whether 
this part of the German plan succeeded or not. 
Von Kluck's men were very near exhaustion, and 
for some days past, partly owing to the constant 
changes in the position of his troops, and partly to 
the fact that, while Maubeuge held out, the forward- 
ing of supplies to the German right by rail was 
complicated and difficult, his supply arrangements 
had not worked smoothly, his men had not therefore 
been receiving their rations regularly, and many 
of the prisoners we captured complained that they 
were hungry. More important still, Germany, 
like every other Power engaged in the war, had 
under-estimated the enormous expenditure of ara- 

178 



The Ourcq and the Marne 



munition which the prolonged battles of these 
days entail, and the supply of shells, which had 
been heavily drawn upon during the four days' 
struggle on the Ourcq, was running low. On the 
other hand, reinforcements in the shape of Land- 
strum and Landwehr troops sent south from 
garrison duty in Belgium were on their way to von 
Kluck, and some indeed had actually arrived, 
Manoury's troops were as exhausted as his own, he 
was making real progress round the French left, and 
a few hours more of resolute effort might yet give 
him such a victory as would banish all the troubles 
in which his rash advance across the Marne had 
involved him. 

This was the situation when two pieces of news 
reached him. Gallieni, again collecting in Paris all 
the motor-buses, taxis, and lorries which the city 
could furnish, had sent out in them at an early 
hour to strengthen Manoury, and to assist in 
covering the retreat which the evening before had 
appeared to be inevitable, every soldier he could 
make available. So his aviatoi*s reported to von 
Kluck that along the roads leading north-east 
from Paris convoys of motor vehicles of every 
conceivable type were streaming towards Manoury, 
at about the same time as he heard that the British 
had crossed the Marne and were threatening his 
rear. This combination was too much for him. 

179 



Forty Days in 1914 



In less than three weeks the situation had been 
completely reversed, and he now found himself in 
very much the same position as that in which Sir 
John French had been placed by the arrival of 
Joffre's telegram at 5 p.m. on August 23. Before 
11 a.m. von Kluck had thrown up the sponge, 
and ordered the retreat of his left and centre, an 
order extended a few hours later to his right, 
which in the interval was attacking fiercely, in 
order to cover the withdrawal of the remainder 
of the army. 

Meanwhile on our right the French Fifth 
Army, steadily pushing before them the two corps 
which von Kluck had left behind when he marched 
against Manoury, at the same time overcame the 
right of von Billow's Army and forced it to retire. 
These successes enabled Franchet d'Esperey to 
detach his right corps to the help of Foch, who 
throughout this period had been enduring the 
heaviest attacks from the left of von Biilow's 
Army and from von Hausen's Third Army. The 
arrival of this welcome help enabled Foch to draw 
back his Forty-second Division, one of the two 
divisions of the "Iron Corps" which he had com- 
manded and trained before the war, and to place 
it in reserve under his own hand. Throughout 
these strenuous days he had been keenly watching 
for a chance to strike back at the enemy, and now 

180 



The Ourcq and the Marne 



the chance was forthcoming, and he had the troops 
to make use of the chance. On the morning of 
the 9th the Germans renewed their attacks both 
on Foch and on Langle de Cary, still in the hope 
of retrieving the situation by breaking through 
the French centre. But von Kluck's difficulties 
had been gradually pulling von Bulow more and 
more to the right, until at last he had not sufficient 
troops both to help his embarrassed comrade and 
to continue his attacks upon Foch. Still he had 
been steadily gaining ground against the French 
Ninth Army, and a little more might give him all 
he wanted, so that it was worth taking some risk 
to keep up the pressure. Therefore to get the 
necessary troops von Bulow left a gap in his centre 
between La Fere Champenoise and the marshes of 
St. Gond. 

The ^situation on the afternoon of the 9th was 
then that Franchet d'Esperey's Tenth Corps, coming 
at the critical time to Foch's help, had attacked and 
was slowly pushing back von Biilow's right, whose 
flank had become exposed by the retirement of von 
Kluck's left before the French Fifth Army ; the left 
of Foch's Ninth Army was holding its own south of 
the marshes against portions of the Prussian Guard. 
Then came the gap between the marshes and La 
Fere Champenoise, south of which von Biilow's left 
of the German Guard and the right of von Hausen's 

181 



Forty Days in 1914 



Army were pressing hard on, and gaining ground 
against, Foch's centre and right. Thus the issue 
still hung in the balance, but Foch had his Forty- 
second Division ready, and between 5 and 6 o'clock 
in the afternoon he flung it into the gap against the 
exposed flank of von Biilow's left wing. This in one 
glorious charge it smashed to pieces, while at the 
same time the whole of Foch's line advanced to the 
attack. Under this double pressure from front and 
flank the German centre broke, turned, and streamed 
northwards, pursued far into the night under a 
deluge of rain, as a thunderstorm burst over the 
battle-field, by Foch's eager infantry. The battle of 
the Marne was over, and by this crowning mercy the 
whole German line from Verdun westwards was com- 
pelled to follow the example of von Kluck's Army. 
Much has been written about the miracle of 
the Marne, and I yield to no one in my admira- 
tion for Foch's generalship and the cool judgement 
which, after days of almost intolerable strain, he 
displayed in seizing at once upon the weak spot 
in the enemy's line and aiming at it, at exactly 
the right time, a blow which changed what would 
otherwise have been a limited success into complete 
victory. Contemporary opinion has already done 
justice both to Foch's leadership and to the endur- 
ance and valour of his troops. Nor has there been 
any failure to recognise either the splendour of 

182 



The Ourcq mid the Marne 



Manoury's resistance in face of von Kluck's des- 
perate efforts, or Gallieni's resource and enterprise 
which contributed so much to the final victory. 
But nowhere yet, so far as I am aware, has justice 
been done to the part played by the British Army 
in this glorious episode. Our men were not called 
upon to fight as they had fought at Mons and at 
Le Cateau, nor as Foch's and Manoury's men had 
had to fight in this battle. But I am convinced 
that history will decide that it was the crossing 
of the Marne in the early hours of the 9th by the 
British Army which turned the scale against von 
Kluck and saved Manoury at a time of crisis. At 
the time when we were crossing the Marne the 
French Sixth Army was very near the limits of 
its endurance, and, as I have already indicated, 
Gallieni had begun to take the measures necessary 
to prepare for a retreat. Manoury on the morning 
of the 9th had been forced to act defensively along 
his whole front, and though it is probable that 
von Kluck had realised by then that he could not 
overcome the gallant Frenchman in the time left 
to him, yet it cannot be maintained that an army 
on the defensive, however stout its resistance, 
can of itself compel an enemy to retire as fast 
and as far as did von Kluck's army. The left of 
the French Fifth Army did not reach the Marne 
until the evening, and therefore it can hardly have 



Forty Days in 1914 



affected the German general's decision of the fore- 
noon. Foch's blow at La Fere Champenoise was 
not struck until late in the afternoon, and it is 
impossible that the news of von Biilow's defeat 
could have reached von Kluck until late in the 
night; yet he had evacuated Betz as early as 11 
a.m. and by 4 p.m., that is, before Foch's orders 
for his master-stroke had taken effect, both our 
cavalry and our airmen reported the German 
columns on our front were streaming northwards. 
It is therefore not possible to arrive at any other 
conclusion than that it was the menace of the 
British advance to his flank and rear which pre- 
cipitated von Kluck's decision, caused the Germans 
to begin their retreat, and saved Manoury at a 
time when he was in grave danger. 

The retreat from Mons is already a glorious 
page in the history of the British Army, but the 
advance after the retreat is certainly no less remark- 
able. That an army, which on August 23 had 
been all but surrounded by an enemy who out- 
numbered it by two to one, should have fought its 
way out, retreated 170 miles, and then immediately 
turned about and taken a decisive part in the 
battle which changed the course of the campaign 
of 1914, is as wonderful an achievement as is to 
be found in the history of war. 

Amidst all the feats of endurance, courage, 
184 



The Ourcq and the Mame 



and (devotion which marked these memorable 
days, feats of which we have as yet heard but a 
very meagre tale, for many of the finest were per- 
formed by men who have spent long years of 
heart-breaking captivity in German prison camps 
and their stories have not been heard, there is 
nothing of which we may be prouder than of the 
behaviour of the men, and of the devotion to them 
of their officers and non-commissioned officers, not 
in the days of battle only, but in the far more 
trying days and nights of weary tramping in 
retreat. At first the bonds of discipline were of 
necessity relaxed, small parties became separated 
from their own battalions and joined up with others 
which they did not know and where they were not 
known, individual stragglers who had dropped 
behind from exhaustion or had lost their way were 
frequent, and rations, despite the exertions of the 
Army Service Corps, could not always be got to the 
troops. There was every opportunity and excuse 
for excess, yet there was none, and it is not only 
in the rapid change from retreat to advance that 
the story of the retreat from Mons may challenge 
comparison with that of the retreat to Corunna. 

I well remember on the morning of August 28 
meeting in a small French town the commander 
of a company of a famous regiment, who, to 
my certain knowledge, had not in the previous 

185 



Forty Days in 1914 



sixty hours had more than a few odd snatches 
of sleep, and had passed the whole of the previous 
night tramping' with his men. He had been told 
that he would have three hours' rest, and he 
spent the greater part of it in driving round the 
town in a light cart he had borrowed buying 
any food he could discover, and paying for it out 
of his own pocket such prices as the inhabitants 
liked to ask. This is one small example, but it 
is typical of the spirit of the British Army. It 
did not occur to this officer that he was doing 
anything out of the ordinary; his men had had 
no food since the previous morning, and his first 
duty was to look after his men. The food might 
have been taken by force, and no one would have 
been the wiser, for the Germans would be in the 
town in a few hours and would help themselves 
without payment, but for the honour of Britain — I 
will not say of England for my friend was a Scot — 
and for the honour of the Army all things had to 
be done in order. He had told his men that he 
would get them a breakfast, so while he went 
marketing they tightened their belts and waited 
patiently in the midst of comparative plenty, for 
the German advance had come like a bolt from 
the blue and the inhabitants had had little time 
to remove their stocks. The Germans boast 
loudly of the iron discipline of their army, but 

186 



The Ourcq and the Marne 



when we compare the behaviour of their soldiers 
in retreat with that of our men in like circum- 
stances, we may thank God that British discipline, 
which depends first and foremost on the relations 
between officer and man, is of a very different 
type, and rejoice that it stood better than the 
enemy's rigid rules the severest test which war 
can bring. Everywhere as we advanced we found 
a trail of wanton destruction — the wine shops 
gutted, the village streets littered with broken 
bottles, household treasures too heavy to remove 
wantonly destroyed; and this time it was not the 
organised and systematic brutality which had 
ravished Belgium as part of a military plan, but 
the dissolution of order which left the German 
soldiery free to follow their natures and rob and 
pillage at will. 

Before I close this chapter there is one criticism 
of our advance which must be met. Von Kluck 
took two whole corps away from the front which 
the British Army was directed by Joffre's order to 
attack, to fling them against Manoury, and it has 
been hinted in some quarters that the German 
was only able to do this because we failed to play 
our part. This is an assumption which is in no 
way warranted by the facts. On the afternoon 
of September 4 Joffre had requested Sir John 
French to move his army to the south of the forest 

187 



Forty Days in 1914 



of Crecy, because the French Fifth Army had 
again been compelled to fall back, and he required 
more room to the south of the Grand Morin to 
combine the operations of his Fifth Army with 
those of the new Ninth Army, which had come 
into line on Franchet d'Esperey's right. So it 
came about that on the morning of September 5, 
after marching all night, our main bodies were 
some fifteen miles south-east of Coulommiers. 
Now von Kluck became aware of his danger on the 
evening of September 5, and began to march his 
Second Corps northwards from Coulommiers at 
an early hour the next day. It was therefore 
clearly out of the power of the British Army, placed 
as it was, and with a strong screen of German 
cavalry between it and the Grand Morin, to have 
prevented this movement. It was, as I have said, 
unfortunate that we could not get more troops 
across the Marne in the early hours of the eventful 
9th, for, could we have done so, we might have 
utterly smashed von Kluck's embarrassed left. 
But Sir Douglas Haig, who was at the time well 
in advance of the French Fifth Army, was delayed 
by von Richthofen's movement from the east 
to support von Marwitz, just as the Third Corps 
was delayed by the broken bridges of the Marne. 
It was known that there were large German forces 
on our right, and an attack upon our right flank 

188 



The Ourcq and the Marne 



while our main bodies were in the act of crossing 
the Marne was just such a manoeuvre as the enemy 
might be expected to attempt in order to get 
himself out of his difficulties. Had Sir Douglas 
Haig known that von Kluck had decided on retreat 
and that the force reported to be moving west 
from Chateau-Thierry was composed of cavalry 
coming to cover the retreat, he probably would 
not have checked his march, but he knew none of 
these things, and until he was more certain of the 
situation it would obviously have been the height 
of imprudence to risk the passage of an important 
river. Of such are the accidents of war. Neither 
Sir John French nor his corps commanders had, 
or could by any possibility have had, at the moment 
the knowledge of the situation which we now 
possess, and it is from the standpoint of what he 
knew at the time and how he acted upon his 
knowledge that a commander in war should be 
judged, not from the standpoint of knowledge 
collected after the event. It needs small skill 
to be a general when all the enemy's plans and 
dispositions are exposed. Therefore it is not in 
the light of what might have been achieved had 
the circumstances been different that the effect of 
the advance of the British Army must be judged, 
but rather by what was actually accomplished, and 
this, as I have tried to show, was no mean thing. 

189 



CHAPTER IX 

THE HIGHER COMMAND IN WAR 

My object in the foregoing chapters has been to 
explain the part taken by our original expedi- 
tionary force in the first phase of the war, and to 
display the strong and weak points in the German 
armour. Owing to the surprise achieved by the 
German General Staff, Sir John French's Army 
had to meet the full weight of the instrument 
which the enemy had designed to be the chief 
means of carrying to complete victory his campaign 
in the West — von Kluck's Army. Our officers and 
men had been taught in peace time that decisive 
results in war can only be obtained by attack, 
and that the defensive is the refuge of the weak. 
Looking hopefully to the relief of Belgium by an 
offensive campaign, they had been thrown at once 
upon the defence, and their first experience of 
modern European war was hurried retreat. They 
saw at once something had gone very wrong with 
the Allied plans. Moreover, when Joffre, pivoting on 
Verdun, was compelled to swing back the northern 
section of his line, we on the outer flank had to carry 

190 



The Higher Command in War 

out the longest retreat, in the most exposed position, 
and in face of an enemy of not less than twice our 
strength. It is the highest possible tribute to the 
quality and training of the Old Army that in these 
circumstances it not only retained its moral and 
cohesion, but played a leading part in bringing to 
naught the enemy's dreams of a rapid conquest 
of France. It saved the French Fifth Army from 
destruction, when, standing alone at Mons, it 
drew upon itself von Kluck's attack. If the 
First German Army had been able to come down 
upon de Lanrezac's flank when he was retreating 
before von Biilow from the battle-field of the 
Sambre, the Germans might well have succeeded 
in their ambition of rolling up the French line 
from the left. 

Looking back now at the situation in which we 
were placed on the morning of August 24, it seems 
almost incredible that we should have escaped 
destruction. No less marvellous is it that Sir 
Horace Smith-Dorrien's force should on the 26th 
have been able to break off in broad daylight a 
battle with an enemy of more than twice its strength 
and five days later have been in a condition to 
fight again with effect. That the German leaders 
misjudged the situation and missed chances which 
now appear obvious does not detract from the 
achievement of our men. The chances were missed 

191 



Forty Days in 1914 



because the enemy's plans were upset by cool 
leadership in almost desperate circumstances, and 
by the dogged and skilful fighting of the British 
soldier, who surprised the enemy, first by the un- 
expected vigour of his resistance, and then by his 
no less unexpected recovery. The German plan of 
envelopment was finally foiled when von Kluck, 
after changing direction and making forced marches 
south-eastwards from Amiens to cut off the French 
Fifth Army from the Marne, came upon us on 
September 1 an organised and formidable force. 
The enemy's plan of campaign was fundamentally 
changed by that encounter with an army which 
he thought he had completely defeated. The 
march round had become impossible, and its 
place had to be taken by the break through, and 
so the first battle of the Marne was brought 
about. Our Army had in the interval helped to gain 
time for Joffre to prepare his scheme of counter- 
attack after his first offensive plans had collapsed. 
When the counter-attack came we saved Manoury, 
as we had saved de Lanrezac, were the first of the 
Allied forces to cross the Marne in pursuit of the 
enemy, and were one of the main factors in bringing 
about von Kluck's retreat to the Aisne. 

I have in discussing the events of the retreat 
from Mons tried to make clear where and how the 
German leaders failed in the execution of their 

192 



The Higher Command in War 

plan. There was nothing in the way in which 
von Kluck turned to account the position of over- 
whelming superiority in which he was placed on 
the morning of August 23 to compare in point of 
generalship with Sir John French's extrication of 
his army from the jaws of destruction. Armies 
have in the past been placed in situations almost 
equally perilous, but I can recall no instance in 
which they have escaped with so little damage to 
themselves and so much loss to the enemy, nor 
any in which they have passed so quickly from 
retreat to an advance against their pursuers. 
There was nothing in Moltke's manoeuvring of his 
armies, when once battle was joined, which bears 
comparison with the manner in which Joffre, with 
the fate of his country and of Europe on his 
shoulders, quietly and calmly picked up the broken 
threads of his first plans, and wove them afresh 
into a formidable and successful scheme of attack. 
There was no German general who, in these opening 
battles of the war, showed a glimpse of such inspira- 
tion as Foch displayed in his counter-stroke at La 
Fere Champenoise. No, it was not by generalship 
in the field and by the way in which their generals 
dealt with the daily changes in the military situa- 
tion that the Germans won their initial advantage 
in the West, and yet they did win such advantages 
as all the efforts of the Allies from the beginning 

193 



Forty Days in 1914 



of 1915 until the summer of 1918 failed to wrest 
from them. They carried the war into the country 
of their enemies, overran Belgium, occupied the 
rich industrial districts of Northern France, and 
while doing this held off the Russian hosts. In 
population, wealth, manufacturing capacity, and 
even in the strength of their naval and military 
forces, the Central Powers were, at the outbreak 
of war, in the aggregate inferior to their enemies. 
If their generals were not superior to the Allied 
commanders in qualities of leadership, and their 
troops in no way pre-eminent in valour, how did 
they gain the preponderating position which they 
held for so long? 

The Germans schemed for this war, devoted 
long years to preparation for it, and entered it 
thoroughly organised for a struggle of nations. 
That is universally recognised. We have more 
than paid a just tribute to the capacity of our 
chief enemy for organisation. Yet, save in one 
respect, we have proved ourselves to be at least 
his equal. Given the fact that we had never 
grasped the meaning of a war for national existence, 
that we did not want war at all, and were in no 
way ready for it, our achievements in organisation 
are in no way inferior to his. We have done 
what he believed to be impossible, in raising and 
placing in the field new armies many times as 

194 



The Higher Command in War 

strong as the forces which we maintained in time 
of peace. We have kept open for ourselves and 
our Allies the sea communications of the world. 
Our financial organisation has from the first been 
superior to his. In our arrangements for the 
control of our food supply we have notably im- 
proved upon the methods of Germany. The 
enemy has produced no weapon or device applic- 
able to modern war which we have not at least 
equalled, and in most cases surpassed. We have 
often been lamentably slow in getting to work, but 
in all these cases we have shown no lack of organising 
power when the matter was really taken in hand. 
The one respect in which we have failed has been 
in the organisation of our Higher Command. By 
this I do not mean merely the arrangements for the 
control of our naval and military forces, but rather 
the machinery for the co-ordination of policy with 
naval and military strategy, machinery which I 
may call, in short, the government of the war. 

The elder Moltke was, as the result of his ex- 
periences in 1870, the first to perceive that 
Napoleon's aphorism "in war men are nothing, 
the man is everything" did not apply absolutely 
to the nation in arms. He realised that the im- 
portance of organisation in times of peace had 
enormously increased, and believed, as his successors 
have believed, that the nation which was best 

195 



Forty Days in 1914 



organised could obtain such a start as no efforts 
made during the course of a war by laggards in 
preparation could make good. He saw that armies 
numbering millions could not be influenced by 
the personality of their General-in-Chief in the 
way in which Napoleon influenced his armies, that 
there would be less scope for the intervention of 
the Higher Command on the battle-field, and more 
need for careful planning before battle was joined. 
Lastly, he grasped the essential fact that in a war 
for national existence it would no longer be a 
question of employing military force to the best 
advantage but of combining the whole power of 
the nation, the whole political, diplomatic, naval, 
military, financial, and industrial strength of the 
country for the defeat of the enemy. Such a 
burden could not be borne by any one man, and 
therefore he designed to assist and in some measure 
to replace the man by a system. 

It is unnecessary for me here to describe in 
detail the constitution and organisation of the 
German General Staff. This has long ago been 
admirably done by Professor Spenser Wilkinson 
in his little book The Br am of an Army. My 
purpose is to sketch briefly the working of the 
system in relation to the supreme control in time 
of war. The basis of the system is the separa- 
tion of administration from command, that is, of 

196 



The Higher Command in War 

Responsibility for what I may call the business 
side of war from responsibility for the planning 
and conduct of military operations. The planning 
side presents to the business side its estimate of 
what is needed to ensure the success of any given 
campaign or operations in men, transport, supplies, 
munitions, and material of all kinds. If the bill 
cannot be met the plan is bad, and has to be 
modified to fit in with the available resources. 
The planning side is so organised that there are 
selected and trained experts to deal with the details 
of any particular problem which may arise. The 
work of these experts is co-ordinated by higher 
authority and presented to the head of the whole 
organisation in a reasoned form. It is then the 
business of the chief to see that plans so prepared 
in accordance with his instructions are made known, 
as far as may be necessary, to such other depart- 
ments of state as may be affected, and to present 
to the supreme authority of the state a complete 
proposal as to military policy, for the execution of 
which he is responsible when it has been accepted. 
The chief point of the system is that one man and 
one man only is in a position to advise the supreme 
authority in this manner, and he is the Chief of 
the General Staff, who alone has at his disposal 
the machinery for preparing considered advice, 

197 



Forty Days in 1914 



and for supervising the execution of the approved 
policy. 

Moltke said of his system towards the end of 
his career that it would aid a genius if Germany 
were so fortunate as to possess a genius in time of 
need, and could be worked effectively by a man of 
ordinary capacity who had been trained to under- 
stand and use it. He held that no system of 
control in war could be sound which depended 
for success on the accident of a genius being at 
hand when required, and that modern national 
life was so complex that no genius could, without 
the help of a complete and scientific organisation, 
make full use of its potentialities for war. In an 
outburst of complacence he said, in reviewing his 
life work, that he had left his country a system of 
command which no other nation could equal. He 
has proved to have been very nearly but fortu- 
nately not quite right. He did not foresee the evils 
which result from placing in the hands of an 
autocratic authority such an instrument as an all- 
powerful and highly organised General Staff. He 
did not foresee that Prussian Junkerdom would 
use the instrument which he had created to further 
its own base ends. Both he and Bismarck, neither 
of them unduly troubled by conscience, as the 
piece of trickery by which they brought about 
the war of 1870 shows, must have turned many 

198 



The Higher Command in War 

.times in their graves at the stupidity of their 
successors in ranging the rest of the civilised world 
against the Central Powers. He did not foresee 
a war of such length as would give the enemies 
of Germany time to make good their defects in 
preparation. He did not foresee that his system, 
too rigidly applied by ordinary men, brought up 
in blind faith in its efficacy, would limit their 
power of dealing with the unexpected and weaken 
their initiative in the field. The German system 
of command has not escaped the evil which has 
affected the whole national life of Germany, the 
evil against which we are fighting, but its under- 
lying principles are none the less sound, and 
despite all the errors which our enemies have made 
in its application, it remains a terribly effective 
instrument for the conduct of war. If we turn 
our minds back to what we expected Germany 
to achieve when she forced the world into war, 
and compare this with what she actually accom- 
plished in 1914, if we reflect that it was not fighting 
or generalship in the field but careful planning 
and organisation which placed the German armies 
in the position of overwhelming superiority in 
which they found themselves when they first met 
the Allied forces in the West, if we consider that 
it was again planning and organisation which were 
near giving Germany complete success in the 

199 



Forty Days in 1914 



spring of 1918, when she once more sought to 
decide the war in the West, 1 we must admit that 
a system which can produce such results at least 
merits respectful consideration. 

We have, as I have already pointed out, learned 
much from the enemy in this war. Where his 
weapons proved superior to our own we have 
copied or improved upon them. We have care- 
fully studied his tactical methods and gained by 
the study. It is therefore logical that we should 
also study his methods of conducting war, taking 
from them for our use what is good and rejecting 
what is evil. Yet in this respect we have lagged 
behind, and constructed slowly and painfully a 
machinery of our own without sufficiently profit- 
ing by the experience we have gained or by the 
example which the enemy has set us. 

All European armies, and ours among the rest, 
have adapted the German General Staff's system 
in one form or another, to their own special condi- 
tions, but we have not yet succeeded in welding 
the General Staff system into the machinery of 
government in time of war. We still as a nation 
are unable to distinguish the essential difference 

1 It was the planning and preparation during the previous 
winter, as much as the transference of troops from the East- 
ern front to the Western, which led to Germany's success in 
March, 1918. 

goo 



The Higher Command in War 

between the military opinion of individual soldiers 
and the military opinion of the responsible head 
of a scientific organisation. We still confound 
command and administration, to the detriment of 
both. We began in August 1914 with the mistaken 
notion that we could go into European war with a 
limited liability. For a war of limited liability our 
preparations were adequate. The mobilisation and 
despatch to France of our little Expeditionary 
Force were completed smoothly and efficiently, 
thanks to devoted work at the War Office, 
carried through in face of great difficulties. 
Owing to the labours of the Committee of Imperial 
Defence the Departments of State knew what they 
would be required to do in such a war. But it 
occurred to no one in authority that our system 
of government in time of peace would require 
profound modification in time of war, and no one 
had thought out what form such modification 
should take. Relying on the individual rather 
than the system, the nation placed at the head of 
its military administration the soldier in whom it 
had the greatest confidence, and was for a time 
content. Fortunately for ourselves and for Europe 
Lord Kitchener proved himself at once to be a 
man of wider vision and sounder judgement, on 
the broad issues of the war, than any other states- 
man either in our own, in Allied, or in enemy 

201 



Forty Days in 1914 



countries. He at once scouted the theory of 
limited liability, and set to work to organise the 
Empire for a prolonged struggle, thereby saving 
both us and our Allies. 

Unfortunately almost the whole of Lord 
Kitchener's military and administrative career had 
been spent in the outer parts of the Empire. He 
was unfamiliar with our methods of government, 
and had not been brought into touch with the 
modern General Staff system. He had placed 
upon his shoulders the intolerable burden of 
administration and of command. He had at one 
and the same time to undertake the tasks of rais- 
ing us to the rank of a first-rate military power 
and of acting as the supreme military adviser to 
the Government on the conduct of the war. He 
did not himself realise until after he had been for 
some considerable time in office that this system 
was wrong, and by the time he did realise it, it 
had already broken down. The Dardanelles Com- 
mission puts the matter clearly and tersely in the 
following words: "We are of opinion that Lord 
Kitchener did not sufficiently avail himself of the 
services of his General Staff, with the result that 
more work was undertaken by him than was pos- 
sible for one man to do, and that confusion and 
want of efficiency resulted." * The Commission 
1 Dardanelles Commission, First Report, 1917, p. 43. 

202 



The Higher Command in War 

might have added that on the principle of limited 
liability the General Staff at the War Office, con- 
sidering that there would be no scope for its energies 
in London, had been transferred almost in a body 
to France. 

Lord Kitchener had, owing to his reputation 
and strength of character, a commanding position 
in the councils of the State, and this had the un- 
fortunate result that many who realised that some- 
thing was wrong came to the conclusion that the 
fault lay in giving a soldier too much authority 
rather than in the defects in the machinery of 
government. Our principle of government in 
time of peace has always been to place authority 
in the hands of men who are not experts, to leave 
them free to consult such experts as they wished, 
and to draw their own conclusions after hearing 
the opinions of these experts. This will not work 
in time of war, because, as I have explained, under 
any properly organised system of military com- 
mand there can only be one expert who is in 
a position to give authoritative and responsible 
military advice to the Government. Our troubles 
in this war have arisen, not because our Govern- 
ments have neglected to take military advice, but 
almost invariably because they have not confined 
themselves to the right kind of military advice. 
If Ministers seek advice on the conduct of war 

203 



Forty Days in 1914 



from a number of soldiers, taking this man's advice 
on one point, and that man's on another, they are 
impressed chiefly by each individual soldier's 
power of expressing himself, and of urging his 
views, and not by the one consideration which 
gives his advice value, namely, whether it is the 
result of careful and detailed examination of all 
the factors involved in the problem in question. 
Only the soldier with the machinery at his disposal 
to enable him to conduct such an examination 
can, the conditions of war being such as they now 
are, give advice as it should be given; the others 
may occasionally be right, they will more often 
be wrong. Under any other system Ministers have 
themselves to piece together a mosaic of military 
policy, and this they have not the necessary 
technical knowledge to do, while they are tempted 
almost irresistibly to select from each adviser that 
advice which suits best their preconceived ideas 
and policy. 

An extreme instance of the weakness of our 
system of conducting war is the manner in which 
the decision to advance to Baghdad in the autumn 
of 1915 was reached. The Government had before 
them the opinion of the general on the spot, who 
looked at the matter from the local point of view, 
but who was not adequately equipped with the 
means of forming an opinion as to the forces which 

204 



The Higher Command in War 

the enemy could bring to his theatre of war from 
elsewhere. They consulted the Commander-in- 
Chief in India, who was not responsible for the 
collection of information about the Turkish forces, 
which was the business of the General Staff at the 
War Office. They consulted the General Staff at the 
War Office, which was not responsible for the con- 
duct of these operations, and was not fully informed 
of the condition of the troops or the state of the 
transport. They consulted the Military Secretary 
at the India Office, who was not responsible in any 
way for the conduct of the campaign. In all this 
galaxy of advisers there was not one in a position 
to review the whole problem, and to propose a 
plan which took all the factors into account. 

The Mesopotamia Commission summed up the 
matter as follows : 

The dual system under which London and Simla 
tried to conduct the campaign in Mesopotamia has 
obvious drawbacks. The chain of responsibility is 
greatly lengthened by the number of authorities who 
had necessarily to be consulted, and who had a voice 
in the direction of affairs. We will enumerate the 
various authorities who had to be consulted with regard 
to the Mesopotamian Expedition: first the General 
Officer commanding on the spot in Mesopotamia, then 
the Commander-in-Chief in India, then the Viceroy, 
then the Secretary of State for India, with his Military 
Secretary, then the War Council, with the Imperial 

205 



Forty Days in 1914 



Staff, and finally the Cabinet. Such a subdivision of 
authoritative control must weaken the sense of re- 
sponsibility of each authority consulted, and it cer- 
tainly has made it very difficult accurately to appor- 
tion blame or credit. It was under the dual system 
of control that the administrative failures took place 
during 1915 in Mesopotamia, and it was not until Lon- 
don took over sole charge that there was any marked 
improvement in the management of the campaign. The 
improvement and success since effected are a striking 
illustration of the all-importance of unity of control 
in time of war. 1 

We have travelled some distance since those 
days, but still not far enough. We have solved the 
complex problem of unity of command in France, 
with results which are patent to every one, but 
we have still to accept the principle of unity of 
advice at home. I doubt if there is any responsible 
British statesman to-day who would not say that 
it is not only his right but his duty to call in a 
second opinion when he is in doubt. As recently 
as May 1918 a Member of the War Cabinet said 
that in this very case of the Mesopotamian campaign 
the cause of our troubles lay in placing too much 
authority in the hands of the soldiers, and if this 
statement represents the views of the Government 
it shows that the Commission has laboured in vain. 2 

1 Mesopotamia Commission, Report, 1917, p. 117. 

2 "I myself had bitter experience of it in India, and any one 

206 



The Higher Command in War 

Ministers feeling deeply their responsibility and 
their ignorance of strategy are naturally loth to 
place themselves unreservedly in the hands of a 
soldier. Yet the acceptance of the principle of 
unity of advice does not debar the Government 
from obtaining any opinions or any views which 
it may desire to hear; it merely ensures that all 
opinions and views are presented to it through one 
channel, so that they may be tested, examined, and 
criticised in relation to other plans and proposals. 
It means, in short, system and organisation. 

System and organisation will not eliminate the 
human factor, but they will reduce, if they cannot 
abolish, the chances of error. The most perfect 
General Staff will make mistakes in war, because 
the conduct of war still depends largely upon 
guessing what the enemy is thinking and planning, 
and the best generals or the best staff can only 
hope to guess right more often than they guess 
wrong. Any human organisation depends for 
efficiency on the character and personality of its 
chief, and none more so than an organisation for 
the conduct of war. Further, it is of the very 
first importance that there should be the most 

who had read the Mesopotamian Report would see the results 
of setting up a military administration practically independent 
of civil control" (Lord Curzon speaking at Caxton Hall, May 
19, 1918). 

207 



Forty Days in 1914 



complete trust and confidence between the Govern- 
ment and their military adviser, and if they should 
be limited to one consultant at a time there should 
be no limit to their choice of that consultant. If 
the Government is not satisfied with the advice 
which they receive, the remedy is to change the 
adviser, not to seek a second opinion. In one 
important respect we have drifted backwards, 
since the Secretary of State for War has again been 
made responsible to the Government and to Parlia- 
ment both for the administration of our military 
forces and for the conduct of the war. This 
change has been made on Constitutional grounds. 
But surely the principle of our Constitution is 
that Ministers should be responsible to Parliament, 
and it cannot be a serious subversion of this prin- 
ciple that the Chief of the Imperial General Staff 
should report directly to, and be responsible to, 
the War Cabinet, who in turn are responsible to 
Parliament. There is nothing of militarism in such 
an arrangement, which strengthens rather than 
weakens the authority of the Civil Government: 
there lurks behind it no peril to our liberties. 

Either the Secretary of State for War's responsi- 
bility for the conduct of military operations is 
real, in which case he is overburdened, just as 
Lord Kitchener was overburdened, for the super- 
vision of the administration of our huge armies 

208 



The Higher Command in War 

and all that it involves is more than sufficient 
to occupy the energies of the veriest glutton for 
work, or it is nominal, in which case it is a farce. 
From a military point of view there are very real 
advantages in placing the Commanders-in-Chief in 
the field in direct communication with the miltary 
adviser to the Government. Such a system defines 
responsibility and would avoid so absurd a situa- 
tion as that in which Mr. Chamberlain was placed 
by the report of the Mesopotamia Commission. 
Mr. Chamberlain was held to be responsible for 
the conduct of operations in Mesopotamia, but it 
is quite obvious that, under the system as it existed, 
he did not and could not exercise any real control, 
and that he could not have acted otherwise than 
he did act. He was the victim of our neglect to 
organise on scientific lines a central control of the 
war. 

At the present time this central control is vested 
in a War Cabinet, which is concerned not only with 
war policy but with the domestic policy of the 
whole Empire. We have been told that this 
Cabinet meets on an average more than once a day 
throughout the year. It is often concerned with 
the gravest social and political problems which 
have no direct bearing on the conduct of the war, 
and in these circumstances one wonders what time 
the members can have for quiet thinking about 

209 



Forty Days in 1914 



the essential question, how to obtain victory in the 
shortest possible time. The War Cabinet is com- 
posed of Ministers without portfolios, not in direct 
touch with the great War Departments of State, 
and it is necessary that its members should be kept 
constantly informed upon all naval and military 
questions. This entails the attendance of their 
naval and military advisers at almost every meet- 
ing, and therefore seriously curtails the time which 
those advisers are able to give to the considera- 
tion of the problems of naval and military strategy 
which are their special province. In fact, just as 
responsibility is over-centralised in the Secretary 
of State for War, so it is over-centralised in the 
War Cabinet. What we require is a Great General 
Headquarters for the Empire, charged wholly and 
solely with the conduct of the war, and responsible 
for the co-ordination of political, naval, and military 
effort for the defeat of the enemy. Such a body, 
composed of the heads of the various War Depart- 
ments, with the Prime Minister in the chair, and 
with the chiefs of the naval, military, and air 
staffs directly responsible to it, would not require 
to meet daily, for its members, being, for the most 
part, ex officio conversant with the course of the 
war, would not require to meet for the purpose of 
keeping abreast of events, but solely for the pur- 
pose of deciding on important questions of war 

210 



The Higher Command in War 

policy and strategy. Such questions do not arise 
daily, and they should, if the organisation is sound, 
be questions rather concerning the distant future 
than current events. An organisation which has 
time to think, plan, and prepare should rarely 
be surprised, and there is no surer indication of 
defective government in war than the need for 
hasty measures to meet unforeseen emergencies. 

We have come to regard "muddling through" 
as an inevitable factor in our conduct of war, and 
after each war we tinker with the army and hope 
that things will be better next time. We have 
consistently failed to recognise that the cause of 
our failures is defective machinery for control of 
affairs, in the widest sense, in time of war. Occa- 
sionally some statesman has grasped this fact, 
and said with a sigh that the British Constitution 
cannot be adapted to the conduct of war. This is 
not the case. If it were we might well despair of 
the future of the British Democracy, for a system of 
government which is incapable of dealing with war 
as it would deal with pestilence or any of the great 
social evils stands condemned. The plain fact is 
that no British statesman had before this war ever 
given his mind to the conduct of a national war, 
and when national war came our rulers have been 
too busy in meeting the emergencies of the day to 
give time to the solution of this by no means 

211 



Forty Days in 1914 



insoluble problem. To solve it we do not require 
any revolution half so drastic as that which placed 
the whole government of the country in the hands 
of a committee of six, but we do require to meet 
an organised enemy by counter-organisation. 

Everything that I have said here as to the 
conduct of military operations applies with equal 
force to naval operations, and still more to the 
combination of both. We, the greatest sea power 
in the world, have made but one attempt in this 
war to employ naval and military force in co-opera- 
tion, and that, owing to the neglect of the first 
principles of organisation in war, was a failure. 
Military strategy is to the amateur more fascinat- 
ing than a chess problem, and in appearance 
not more difficult to grasp. Naval strategy is 
too technical, too closely affected by the mighty 
forces of nature to be congenial to the dabbler. 
The maintenance of the vast land forces of these 
days touches every aspect of national life, and 
five voters are personally affected by a national 
army to one whom a national navy concerns. So 
the Army is subjected to a perpetual inquisition; 
the plant is continually being pulled up to see how 
the roots are growing, while the Navy is left to 
itself, and the combined power of the Navy and 
Army is neglected. We shall never make the best 
and fullest use of our whole power either for war or 

212 



The Higher Command in War 

for peace until those responsible for its direction 
have time to think, and the means to translate 
their thoughts rapidly and effectively into action. 
The whole of the War Cabinet and most of its 
servants are overworked, and an organisation which 
is overworked is defective. We have in the end 
gained complete victory, but we could have gained 
it more quickly had our Governments been organised 
for war. We alone of the Allies have conducted cam- 
paigns in three continents. No other of the nations 
engaged in this world war has been confronted 
by naval and military problems of such variety 
and complexity as we have been. None, therefore, 
needed a more carefully-thought-out organisation, 
and none has one which is so ill-adapted to the 
waging of war. We owe it alike to the men who 
have fallen, to those who have fought and won, 
and to posterity to put this matter right. If we 
learn from our experiences in the war to appreciate 
the value of scientific organisation, we shall not 
have fought in vain. If we do not, we shall not 
establish such a peace as we desire. 



THE END 



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